Respecting Inequality

Equality for Women? Men and women are certainly not equal. But for that matter, no creature is equal. A young dad, an old widow, an adolescent girl, a deaf man, a poor farmer, a village zamindar, a mill worker, a CEO are all not truly equal. Yet from a larger perspective, all of them occupy an equivalent position as living beings on this planet! Gender, age, wealth, colour, nationality, race, caste or marital status, does not take away their Right to Equality. We came equals into this world, and equals shall we go out of it.

So when exactly did the burning issue of gender inequality enter the picture? The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of the female gender begins right from the moment when the doctor announces “It's a girl”. The right to education, right to Inheritance, right to maintaining their family name, right to performing the parents’ last rites, right to freedom in public spaces or travelling alone, right to independence and self-sufficiency, right to remarriage, even the right to be born have all been reserved for men for centuries. Politics, governance and the institution of making laws was also a male reserved domain. Even today, women are discouraged from pursuing their professions too seriously. A career for women is seen as an option, a hobby perhaps...marriage and children are viewed as the big ticket prize.  So you see, the Game Field was never Equal...not because women were confirmed as an inferior species, but only because this fabricated lie of inequality served certain vested interests!

To me the first step to Equality begins when a woman feels safe! Safe from being sexually exploited either in her own home or at public spaces, safe from her rights and inheritances from being embezzled, safe to choose her education or career without being judged by her family, safe in her choice of marriage, having children or remarrying without society becoming the adjudicator of her life.....and most importantly, safe to be born without being terminated in the first trimester or safe from being buried alive in the backyard even before she could enjoy her first breath of freedom simply because she belonged to the female gender.

Women should be able to step into public transport without facing the traumatic risk of being molested or being raped and killed (and then be blamed for ‘asking for it’). When women ask for or accept being escorted back home, it is generally because public spaces, public transportation and the law in general have not set up adequate deterrents and offered them the security they rightly deserve. Even today society mildly brands sexual harassment as ‘eve teasing’. Tokenism in the form of separate ticket lines for women or separate hotel floors reserved specially for women are meekly accepted as grand gestures offered, almost as an apology for greater atrocities committed on them day in and day out. Sadly, women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.

This situation can’t continue forever. We will never be able to boast of a true civilization until we have learned to recognize the equal rights of others. An entire society benefits from a system where every woman has the opportunity to realize her full potential and to contribute to the best of her ability. Equal pay isn't just a women's rights issue; when women get equal pay, their family incomes rise and the whole family benefits. Happy, independent, self-possessed women mean happier families, and happier families mean a happy society....and a progressed nation! The need of the hour is for women to be valued by their families and by society at large....and this task is impossible until they are perceived as ‘liabilities’! To remove this outdated tag, women must be realized as beings who receive equal and fair opportunities from birth onwards. 

Being Equal means enjoying equal rights to justice, opportunities, and happiness. Equality certainly does not indicate that women need to behave like men! True Equality is all about respecting Inequality ....where men and women can be themselves, and bring their own unique strengths, talents and creativity into the world to make it a better place. Equality means women being paid fair wages for an honest day’s work just as much as men having an equal right to enjoy cooking, caring for family, raising children or dancing. It does not mean they have to behave exactly in the manner of a stereotyped mould created many centuries ago. Equality means letting go of our biases, and nurturing a society that offers a more logical and just way of living. Where Equality is equivalent to Respect for all!

The Greek philosopher Aristotle rightly summed up the debate on Equality with the wise words, “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”