Nobody Gives You Power, You Just Take it!

I am celebrating International Women's Day- woke up with a terrible head ache. So, a pill and a breakfast ( of course self prepared!) i sit down to reminise on women. Ugh...what to think about or what to brag about? 100 years of Womens' Day and what is there for us? Battered, bruised, wounded....unlucky ones...or the lucky, blessed ones? Some remain blessed, living in self made bubbles in Wonderland created by men...All eyes on Wonderland. A land where you have the right to everything- starting from maternity planning to lesbian marriages et all. There are career oriented women who shun shackles of family and all emotional hiccups...Level-headed women who are brisk in busines suits, heading conferences and leading businesses. Another lucky lot of happy housewives who simply stay at home, sipping the cuppa and meddling with the garden- the elite housewives of the elite men. Oh...life never looked so rosy, a bed of roses for women, right?

There is the average middle class Indian working woman who wakes up, cooks, goes to office, comes back, watches her soaps, cooks, eats and sleeps. It is the same routine day after day after day...where they accidentally get husbands and children in between. And in offices the hardships they face- starting from ego clashes to servile docility, pangs of amorous advances, oh...the list is endless. Grown up staunchly as prospective brides by fathers,we end up with like-minded men called husbands. Then come the sons. We are used to it, used to years and years of emotional submissiveness, where our own rights simply disappear. Or do we have rights at all? A right to say- " I want to study this course". " I want the right to do this job". " I don't want to marry". "I do not want to end up with this person". "I don't want this job now". No...our I's submerge in the collective "We"s of our families- Our family, our name, our culture...Anything we do out of the box- rejected.

There is another lucky lot- the 'free' ones, the liberated divas- femme fatales who can jump any queue, who can climb any corporate ladder, who can win laurels everywhere. These kind of women are the go-getters, can get anything done by the single wag of their little finger! Ahhhh...If beauty comes with some brains, it is indeed a lethal combination, no man can remain averse to it! They live life- Queen Size. No bother whatsoever, they can find their way even in Antarctic with help from male Emperor Penguins;)

So who need rights? Women selling vegetables. Women who work 12 hours in export garments companies, women who toil in construction sites, getting 2/3 pay of men, women who sweep, mop and clean our homes, women who clean toilets and eke out a living, women who suffer decades of abuse from drunk husbands, women who are trafficked, women who just don't realise they have rights. There are women who are stoned for adultery in the same world where there are jet-setting women CEOs. There are women who are lashed for being raped in the same world where there are women who abuse men. Women who can't drive, women who can't vote, women who can't live alone, women who can't leave their homes without male companion, women who need guardian's permission to marry, women who can't work without custodian's permission, women who end up as third, fourth or fifth wife, child-women married off to men the age of grandpa still holding fulla barbies, women paraded naked for incompatible love affairs, women forced into prostitution by own families, women sent to work as maids in foreign lands who end up sexually abused, women who are forced to throw away illegitimate foetuses in flight garbage bins...Did you say rights?

DO WE NEED MEN TO GIVE US OUR RIGHTS? OUR POWER? NO...WE JUST NEED TO TAKE IT BY OURSELVES! WAKE UP WOMEN, HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!!!