For A GenZ: Women’s Day Is Not Just About Celebration!

Celebrating Women’s Day, I grieve the fact that we were ever reduced to such oppression that having a day to call our own became a feat.

At the ripe old age of 22, I asked myself what Women’s Day means to me.

I found myself disillusioned almost, when did being a woman become such an event? What do we celebrate and why?

I found myself in this body by chance, and grieve the fact that we were ever reduced to such oppression that having a day to call our own became a feat.

When did Women’s Day become performative?

Seeing its more superficial side of celebration, I rebuke all the cheesy cards, girl boss hype quotes and Whatsapp message forwards of flowers with my heart and soul.

I dislike the hyperfocus on celebrating the more traditional aspects of womanhood like being a wife or being a mom (yes, I am side-eyeing all the patronizing banners and headlines consoling women for all they “go through” and “sacrifice”).

I dislike the cash grabs made by companies selling groceries, cosmetics, clothes, surgery procedures and perfumes under the pretence of liberating women. Everything about the day feels flippant, ghettoizing, like a meaningless shoutout.

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I don’t disapprove of people finding meaning in embracing the day. If women’s day gives you an opportunity to relax, reward yourself, go on a shopping spree or do something nice for someone, do not hesitate.

But ask yourself if this celebration of womanhood outlasts this designated day? In your own home and around you. Women’s struggles are so deeply embedded in our society and psyches, we are so, so far from truly celebrating womanhood.

Women deserve more

Only till our mothers’ generations, we’ve heard of them wordlessly enduring emotional and physical abuse.

As daughters in Indian homes, many of us face the world from behind invisible pillars, being discouraged from commuting too late, working too far, marrying too late or being too selfish.

Women’s Day came into being from the Universal Female Suffragette Movement in North America. From women who gave almost their whole lives fighting for women’s rights to vote.

Why have one day to bring attention to the women’s emancipation movement when we find ourselves fighting every day?

To be treated as a human is our birthright

Women make half of the world’s population and yet fall back in so many growth indexes. It is ridiculous that women’s rights were never deemed human rights, right off the bat. It is not something given as a pity prize, it is our birthright.

I will not smile, play cool and celebrate this day as a compulsion just because it happens to exist.

Only when I go outside and find myself completely unshackled from the social hindrances put over me based on my gender will I accept any sort of merriment.

Remember the spirit of the day

Remember it for what it’s worth.

The monthly bleeding, the excruciating endometrial pain, the romanticization of painful of labour, sacrifice, social isolation, the long marches, the candles at protest, the apathy towards and dismissal of women’s symptoms at the doctors, the body shaming by loved ones, the denial of residence on grounds of being a lone woman, the stalking and harassing, the mocking of items of clothing — remember it all.

The day after these Women’s Day and each day after that, we must fight and remember. The women brought us thus far, the women we are now and the ones we’ll become.

Emancipation is a cause eternal, and we will keep demanding for what is rightfully ours.

Image source: Khosro, and sketchify, free and edited on CanvaPro

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