THIS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY WE MARCH AGAINST GENDER DISCRIMINATION, FOR EQUALITY, FOR FREEDOM !
The 8th march is celebrated as International Women’s Day (originally International Working Women’s Day) worldwide. Well, it has a long history of Women Struggle. On 8th March 1908 around 15000 women marched through the New York City (to commemorate the march and walkout struggle of 1857 of garment women workers)
demanding shorter working hours, voting rights, better pay and end to child labor.
demanding shorter working hours, voting rights, better pay and end to child labor.
In 1910, inspired by the women’s working class movement, Clara Zetkin, a German Socialist, proposed at the International Women’s Conference (at Socialist Second International) an international day to mark the strike of the garment workers.The decision was passed unanimously by over 100 women representatives of 17 countries with an idea to promote and struggle for equal rights including Suffrage. Now even in the present era, when on the one hand we are talking of democracy and equality for all, we immediately get stuck at the plight of women. We daily come across various forms of oppression where women are always on the receiving end. They are numerous be it the eveteasing, sexual harassment, domestic violence, foeticide/infanticide or even the most cruel forms such as ‘honour’-killings and rape. They are not allowed to make their independent decisions even regarding their studies or marriage or how they have to live their life. On the one hand there are reactionary and feudal institutions such as Khap panchayats and various outfits of saffron brigade that control and exploit women in the name of religion and culture. On the other hand the so called modernity of this new era very cunningly exploits them to make huge profits. Instead of involving women in the social production, they are kept in isolation from it and are limited to such jobs where they are presented as mere attractions to woo the customers. Be it any advertisement, TV commercials or music videos, they are depicted as some consumable objects. Prostitution, which is a violent form of gender
oppression, is being promoted as some ‘service’ industry, where rights of sex-workers are being advocated. Furthermore, in our education system courses such as home-science are
introduced which again push women back to domestic labor.
Scenario in the Campus:
Panjab University can’t be seen in isolation from our society. Although here we have got majority of girl students (around 70%) but still here also we see the Patriarchal system at work. Despite being in such a majority, they hardly influence the decision making in the university. And even to get their petty issues resolved, there is dependency on their male counterparts. Not just that, the university, which is considered to be a ‘centre of
excellence’, cases of eve-teasing or harassment are rampant. And attitude of the authorities is such that instead of addressing the problem and taking necessary steps, much
checks and restrictions are imposed upon the movement of girls. Under the garb of providing ‘security’ to the girls, they are further pushed behind the walls and the whole
issue of democratization of campus and gender equality is pushed aside along with the girls. Rather a girl is expected to behave as an ‘ideal’ student who has nothing to do beside her classroom studies. Furthermore the structure of the society is such that there is a preference of male over female child and hence whenever cost of education increases, the girl students, along with Dalit students, are pushed away from education.
Panjab University can’t be seen in isolation from our society. Although here we have got majority of girl students (around 70%) but still here also we see the Patriarchal system at work. Despite being in such a majority, they hardly influence the decision making in the university. And even to get their petty issues resolved, there is dependency on their male counterparts. Not just that, the university, which is considered to be a ‘centre of
excellence’, cases of eve-teasing or harassment are rampant. And attitude of the authorities is such that instead of addressing the problem and taking necessary steps, much
checks and restrictions are imposed upon the movement of girls. Under the garb of providing ‘security’ to the girls, they are further pushed behind the walls and the whole
issue of democratization of campus and gender equality is pushed aside along with the girls. Rather a girl is expected to behave as an ‘ideal’ student who has nothing to do beside her classroom studies. Furthermore the structure of the society is such that there is a preference of male over female child and hence whenever cost of education increases, the girl students, along with Dalit students, are pushed away from education.
Marching towards Freedom:
Especially after the Delhi gang-rape case, when the country witnessed massive demonstrations with the youth coming out on streets in numbers demanding justice for the victim, the gender oppression has become a matter of routine discussion and solution was sometimes sought in legislating strict laws and sometimes in restricting movement of women especially in late night hours. (Recently Delhi Govt proposed to make a ‘special security force’ for women) But still the gender violence is on the rise.
*According to local media reports, 1,330 cases of rape were reported to police in New Delhi until October 2013, against
706 cases for the whole of 2012.
Then where does the solution lie?
Solution does not lie in pushing women behind the walls but the need is to shatter-away the feudal and patriarchal base of the society which stands on the very subjugation of women. Continuous struggles are to be waged against the anti-women ideologies and practices prevailing in our society, which only can put end to the exploitation going on since centuries. The rotten reactionary and feudal institutions need to be challenged and along with that the exploitation of women at the hands of imperialist market players, which commodify women, need to be exposed and put to end with.
We have a history of struggles where women have come forward and fought, be it the struggle for voting rights or against the discrimination in wages or for restricting the working period to 8 hours. So the way to emancipation of women lies in struggles to build a new society, where every human being would be equal irrespective of gender, class, caste or race.