Women's Day - Whose Empowerment is it, anyway?

A well-meaning friend recently shared this ad with me, hoping to inspire me with the ‘depth’ of its message.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite share her enthusiasm. The ad is well made and will appeal to many, but for me, its message is yet another reflection of social chauvinism --- one that is so ingrained even in the mindset of women that they fail to recognise it in its most blatant form.

So, yeah, women can carry both – but what does that mean? Pile more on to us? Glorify us on Women’s Day and then forget to acknowledge us on the remaining 364? Praise us when we take over everything, more than our fair share, and let things go on as they are? And being women, frown upon other women who are just mundane ‘housewives’ (probably equivalent to the ‘lowly’ sweeper who is the only one who empathizes with the ‘poor’ mother) and then see the housewife suddenly catapult to being a showstopper, when she turns out to be the much more ‘exciting’ mother – an SSP? Is it enough to inspire the model, who thought pregnancy would ruin her career post motherhood, to score a hit by posing pregnant on the cover page of a magazine? What’s next? Post pictures of baby showers and walking the ramp with a toddler? Is it any different from the “type of roles” she was being offered post marriage?

Congratulations ladies, your perspective has changed. You’ve now learnt to accept ‘glory’ and ‘more work’ as the price/prize for your struggles, sacrifices and ‘carrying both,’ while those who typecasted or castigated you continue with their own old ways. Meanwhile, the sweeper who eulogized about her duty as a mother is forgotten, because she isn’t as exciting. And the working woman, who thinks motherhood is equivalent to sacrificing a woman’s identity, ends up as the villain of the piece because she says it’s tough, without a gracious smile.

My dear women, we DON’T need empowerment, and we certainly don’t need men (and other women) to define it for us, to live by their rules. We were, are, and will always be empowered. Empowerment isn’t a conscious choice for most women in a man’s world – simply because most of the choices aren’t real choices, rather they’re consequences of social conditioning, emotional makeup, and even evolutionary ‘gifts’.

Motherhood IS beautiful, but it’s also very tough. Women, who choose to prioritise motherhood over a career, with grace and happiness, are all empowered. So’re women who choose not to be ‘mothers’ or those who ‘carry both.’ Ditto women who’ve been thrust into any of these situations without having a say in it, but still live each day with their heads held high --- doing all they can to make the best of a bad situation. Because being a mother’s tough, being a working professional’s tough, being a housewife’s tough, and being a jack of all trades is tough. It is an individual’s capacity, circumstances, and preferences that define these choices; they’re gender independent.

Each choice calls for compromises, hard work, grit and courage ---  same as the standards by which any human being or living entity should be judged, if at all. There’s neither any separate shame nor any separate glory – it’s all to be equally praised, rather more to be recognised and commended; beyond gender biases that take a break on Women’s Day.

So, let’s NOT wish each other on Women’s Day. Let’s not look down upon other women whose choices differ from our own. Let’s take pride in being human on all days, in our individual successes and failures, in the battles we fight every single day irrespective of their nature, in every choice we’ve made and all the repercussions we’ve survived.

And, then let’s talk of empowering men. Yes, when will we women be able to say that men can carry both too? When will men stop taking pride in privileges that they’ve neither earned nor worked for? When will women stop feeling empowered when someone reminds them of it? When will they acknowledge, even to themselves, that their true identity doesn’t depend on bigoted glory bestowed upon them by the other sex, who in most cases, are yet to prove their worth in deserving the women in their lives – whether a housekeeper, a model, an executive or an SSP.

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