Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Feminism and reservations :


Inspired my good friends blog …

Congress in its election manifesto, promises job reservations for women. They promise one third of all central government jobs for women.

A bill for 33% reservations for women in elections is still dilly dallying in both houses of parliament.

But the actual fact is in the 2004 general elections, only 45 women were elected to the 543-strong Lok Sabha

Now I'm a strong opponent of any kind of reservations. Be it a seat in the bus or a seat in lok sabha.

Will reserving jobs for women or seats for elections, solve their problems?

Studies say, over 10 million female fetuses have been aborted in the last 2 decades in India. Every other day we come across cases of hospitals dumping female foetus. It happens in the open. Why don’t these parties, declare in their manifesto, that capital punishment would be given to all parties involved in a female foeticide ?

As high as 42% girls drop out from school at primary level. Every manifesto mentions these figures. In last two decades of modern India, nothing has changed. Girls still drop out.

We as a political system fail to address the root cause. Why because, foetus do not vote, neither do the primary school girl who drops out to be a house maid.

We have the so called feminist groups and womens rights group advocating day and night for equality and women power. With half of India being women, why don’t they propogate for a women candidate in every constituency and campaign for them. Men don’t stand a chance. But for that, they need to leave the delicacy of 5star cuisines, TV talk shows and Page3 status.


Sarojini Naidu had said – “Why do you want to make women realize that they are not at par with men? Why reservation for them when they can do equally well or even better than men in many spheres of life? Why this discrimination of reservation against women, yes discrimination. Let them gain confidence and allow them to be proud of their achievements. Let them feel that what they are today is only because they deserved it and not because they were given any special treatment or they enjoyed any special privileges.”

3 comments:

Deepa Gopal said...

Very well said!!!
I am not at all a feminist but I do feel the lack of woman empowerment and the lack of awareness of it. I am not speaking of the metro-hi-life or the elite. But to be equipped with the awareness that she has rigts is essential. I think too that Women who consider themselves to be working for their cause should "really" get into their work for the job to be done!
Some serious thought here!!!

'Katha'rsys said...

What I meant is Wearing pants for the job's sake coz they are convinient is very acceptable. But how do we explain the haircut. Lot of women police officers wear pants n neat hairbuns. Believe me, makes such a lovely sight.

What am dead against is the media's depiction of feminism n suprising observation that not a single women's right committee ever objects to it.

N i agree with the Sarojini Naidu article as well.... to prove my worth, I don't want a hurdle free road.

Traveller said...

Well said