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Every day, the newspapers teem with reports of misogynistic news items. Even allowing for sensational headlines, they are indicative of the problems that plague our society.
A groom calls off his wedding because he and his family were upset over badly cooked food.
Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay, while paying his tributes to first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi’s husband Brij Bedi, says “He was a pious man who played an important role in allowing illustrious growth of Kiran Bedi”.
A rape survivor undergoing treatment in a hospital is raped again by a hospital staffer, inside the hospital itself.
So much for women empowerment and emancipation!
A man you are going to marry can call off marriage over badly cooked food which you have not even cooked. A political leader and a prominent person thinks a woman ‘needs permission’ from her husband to pursue her profession. A rape survivor, instead of being looked after sympathetically, is seen as an easy lay and an opportunity to satisfy a pervert’s sexual urges.
A mother-in-law looks after her grand child so that her daughter-in-law can play hockey.
Rajasthan sets minimum wages for domestic helps. They will now get a minimum of Rs 5642 per month for eight hours of work.
And according to a Delhi High Court verdict, the eldest female member of a family can be its ‘Karta’ – this denotes managership of a joint family and is traditionally inherited by men.
So while the winds of change for women are blowing all across the socio-economic-political-legal aspects, yet many fellow women continue to be subjugated and oppressed across the country. Whether it is our temples which prohibit women in the reproductive age from visiting and worshiping their deity, distinguished persons who believe men ‘allow’ women to pursue a career and carve out a status for themselves in the society, or a groom who considers it his sole right to cancel his wedding without even involving the bride in the decision making, all for the apparently frivolous excuse of a badly cooked food; prejudice and discrimination against women continues unabated.
It’s horrendous to think how a political leader insinuates that the first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi, winner of many national and international awards and who is held in high esteem across the world was ‘allowed’ by her husband to take up a job that won her a respectable stature in society.
It is this patriarchal mindset which considers female form as the bait for saints and devils alike, responsible for corrupting pious minds and responsible for all that ails this world. And yet it assigns to its women a higher pedestal as a goddess- a Durga, a Saraswati and a Lakshmi…..how ironical!
Image source: eraser deleting the word patriarchy by Shutterstock.
Curious about anything and everything. Proud to be born a woman. Spiritual, not religious. Blogger, author, poet, educator, counselor. read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
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