Gender sensitivity needs to start from home
An enabling environment is all that a woman needs to push the boundaries of this society
Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed
The World Economic Forum envisaged that global gender parity shall be achieved by the year 2014. They also projected in the following year that a slowdown in the frosty pace of development of global gender parity meant the gender gap wouldnt close completely until the year 2133. This year the theme for International Womens day was Pledge for Parity. International Womens Day has been celebrated in this year in many countries all over the world including Bangladesh but the spirit of this celebration has not been adequately understood by the people of our country yet. In Dhaka city on International Womens Day, we saw both men and women in purple outfits everywhere organizing and participating seminars, symposiums, rallies, conferences to celebrate A Day on the theme of Pledge for Parity for the women of our society. The sad part is despite this awareness among the civil citizen of our society, we overlook that this celebration should begin in our home from the day a girl is born and the celebration should go on during her journey of becoming a woman the way she wants. We have seen both men and women talking about achieving gender parity, how to help women and girls achieve their ambitions. However, if we look at our home we see difference of treatment toward a girl child and a boy child. The mentality of our society does not leave a single scope to smash the confidence of a woman who stands for her right, who speaks up for what she thinks and who does not want to see failure in her life. A new dimension is added with this confidence breaking mission when a blemish is found in that woman. All on a sudden, the family where the woman was raised up as a princess forgets its their girl. The very own family of that girl get trapped inside the social customs, traditions, senses of responsibility prevailing in this mans world and all these factors start outlining to what extent she can dream, what she should desire for and what are her limits. Its not the outsiders rather her very own people start putting limits and bars on all that she calls her happiness. So its the home where she once learnt dreaming for her life and achieving what she wants, starts losing her own self. She no longer can call a place her home when she can be herself.
Family values, ethics and moral principles are not meant to be taught to a girl only so as to fencing a girls dream the way society wants her. Rather the girl should be taught to defeat the obstacles in her path through putting trust on her almighty creator and believing in self-quality. A girl brought up under proper guidance should be able to establish that no one should dare to question her positive inspirations.
The sense of responsibility of a woman should not be imposed on her. She should know what she needs to do and what she deserves when she is a daughter, a wife, a mother. When people try to determine her responsibilities, it sometimes becomes a burden on her.
Every woman has her own story of struggle in life in our society. Cruelty and unfairness are something that all women can relate to in this male dominating world. To make a woman capable of fighting against this browbeaten environment, it is her family that can make her see the opportunities of self empowerment. Again, it is her family that should teach her that she has to earn the respect, the honor, the freedom to pursue her life, dream and career.
Given my subjective position (middle class-working mother), I think women need to sensitize or educate men around them and they should start with the males of their own home. The necessity for women to become outspoken about their rights, imposed duties and imaginary limitations of our society both at home and outside is evident in everyday life of a woman and becoming determined and vocal about her own perspectives on purpose of life may be the first attempt that a woman can take to establish herself as self empowered. She should raise her voice to establish that she has not born to live the life on someone elses wish. An enabling environment is all that a woman needs to push out the boundaries of this society. A girl should put all her effort to remove these so called margins of our society that try to differentiate between an ideal and self empowered girl.
The families should teach their girls to be audacious, more inspirational and more of a rebel with ambition in order to ensure that the next generation doesnt have to struggle for it.
The writer is a lawyer [email protected]
