Sir,
“The thing women have yet to learn is that nobody gives you power.You just take it”.
Patriarchy is a social system in which men are considered as the primary power holders,dominate in all the basic social,political and economical rights and are far more privileged than women.In a patriarchal society both boys and girls take their identity from the father, while the boys are recognised as the permanent members of the family ,the girls are viewed as temporary ones obviously, because according to the patriarchal thinking once she gets married she becomes the property of her husband’s family.Women’s position in a patriarchal society is reduced to good wives,good daughters and good mothers.Nature has made more similarities than dissimilarities between men and women.These are mere bodily differences which are just made for the purpose of reproducing organisms of the same kind and not for deciding who will become a vice chancellor and who will cook food or who will ride a motorcycle and who will manage the household chores.
According to the statistics, In India we have ended the lives of 35 million women and girls before they could even take birth and sometimes after birth.Every 22 minutes a rape takes place in india. 50% of the husbands at some point of time in their life commit domestic violence against their wives. Our constitution long ago decided that men and women should have equal opportunities and should be treated equally.Adressing the provisions of equality our constitution has article 14 ,article 15(1), article 15(3) from fundamental rights and aricle(39a), article 42 and article 51(a) from directive principles of state policy but still society continues with the discrimination against women. Why is this inequality still there? It is because of this system called patriarchy.There are many indian families where a daughter is viewed as a responsibility,a liability which needs food and protection and on the other hand sons are idolised and celebrated.
If India is willing to become a great nation ,it will only happen when we start respecting women ,treating them equally and not letting the distinction created by nature being converted into discrimination.Without challenging the existing traditional customs and values any government legislation can’t be productive.As they say charity begins at home, recognising women and their work at domestic level can be an excellent start culminating into a complete recognition of women in indian political and economical system.
Aishwarya Pandita
Fergusson College, Pune
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel