All For One, One For All : Fight Back!

Why do women tolerate so much injustice? Fight back for yourself and for others, says this post.

“She is the world’s need, yet the most misunderstood personality
Why does not the world heed, when she cries out in times of adversity?”

A woman of today is no different from the woman of yesterday, despite the education, the upbringing, the boldness or the individuality she carries with her. She still feels as vulnerable in present times as before. The feminist in a woman takes a back seat when trouble comes knocking, and she looks around for help, for support, for a morale boost that seemingly gives her momentary relief.

A woman going through a rough relationship, a woman harassed for dowry, a woman traumatized by roving eyes and groping hands of vagabonds of a demented society when she goes for work, a woman suffering domestic abuse in silence no matter how many degrees her intellect has earned her, a woman raising her children who turn out exactly the way she does not want them to, a woman ailing in an old age home spurned by her children at a time when she most needs them, a woman falling into honey traps set by strangers in the virtual world only to be abused and dumped, et al speaks of a change that is yet to happen, or needs to happen.

Despite the education and the work experiences a modern-day woman has, she is still tied to a society by shackles of beliefs, traditions, and the fears of being ostracised even as her conscience forces her  to pursue what she feels is right. When I read about dowry deaths, suicides or cases of abuse, I have observed that victims are sometimes educated and were probably even working.

Then why is it that a woman allows herself to feel the pain and trauma that she does not deserve at all? Why can’t a woman take a stand when she sees the first streak of injustice slapped on her? Why can’t she be brave enough to turn her back on a society that is still ravaged by meaningless beliefs and falsified egos?

A modern-day woman needs to understand her importance. She needs to take a stand for herself when the time calls for it. She needs to speak for herself instead of letting someone play advocate for her. She has to understand that even God helps those who help themselves.

At the first incidence of injustice, she must voice her opinion loud enough to be heard. In certain cases, where a woman does not speak of being victimized in the first instance, she later gets chained by the Stockholm syndrome and suffers injustice silently. It is high time she learns to tackle her issues with tact along with carving an identity for herself. Learning techniques of self defense is one such means of protecting her dignity, her identity, and her self esteem from the miscreants that our society has no dearth of.

And one of the best things modern-day mothers can do is to teach their sons to respect girls, and to help them understand the importance of a woman. Even today, there are mothers who crave sons. Ironically, it is not just women from rural areas, but also a certain percentage of the educated lot who bear a mindset as that.

Have those mothers thought for a second – if they had only sons and no daughters, what would their sons do in a world where there are no women? Why have they not thought of leaving a better generation to this planet?  It is high time the woman of today sets a precedent for her kind and sends a message – loud and clear- to society.

“Each time a woman stands for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women” – Maya Angelou

This post was first published here.

Pic credit: pannoniusrex (used under a CC license)

Narayani Karthik

A software engineer in the past, a content writer, an amateur blogger, an avid reader

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