Today, when the whole country is disturbed looking at the documentary on Nirbhaya, there are many questions raised in everyone’s mind. Everyone wants to say, ‘this is it, our men need to change the mindset, our government needs to do this, etc etc’. And there, my mind asks a question ‘from where and how’. How can a simple person also contribute to the deadly needed change in the society?
Rape, molestation, dowry deaths, domestic violence, prostitution, foeticide these all are the extreme situations about which we discuss so much. But the sick mindset can be observed in the smallest instance of life. The mindset has nothing to do with education or financial background. There are different strata of our society and the so called educated are also involved in gender discrimination. Their education or financial stability do not spare them from having a backward mindset. Still our mother in laws crave for a male child, still educated families go for female foeticide, today also cultured families ask for dowries. Still our society does not accept a ‘bahu’ in jeans in many families. After all, clothes are about dignity and every woman knows about her own dignity. An adult girl should not be taught what to wear and what not.
The issues lie in basic upbringing of our generations, where the children are raised with discriminative lessons itself. We have always seen young girls learning house hold work from her mother or sister, but how many of us has ever seen a mother teaching to sweep or clean utensils to her son? How many of us have seen a mother or father saying their son to clean the house or to help in house hold cores? This is not it. Though we read and write about the greatness of a mother, we can not very frequently see the house making mothers given same importance as fathers. Today also, the fathers or husbands are considered the heads of the family.
These are all unending discussions about uncountable situations. As charity begins at home, the youth, being a future of the nation needs to change from the base. Do involve your sons with you in house hold cores, do teach them to respect women, tell them howsoever physically strong they might be, it is a woman who bears labor. Also, it is the responsibility of everyone to make our daughters feel equal, to enhance their morale, to give them a platform to be independent. Let us make our sons good human beings. Even if the government would alter the laws and become vigilant, the crimes might be lessen, but the hearts of the patriarchs will not be changed. To have a cultured and safe society, we need cultured people in it. Every one of us can not go and stop crimes but every one of us can raise our voice. Isn’t it a time to ask ourselves where and how we can make a difference to our society? Perhaps a small step would be a reformation.
Change is inevitable
