Women's Emancipation

A NO to All Types of Reservation Including Women's

Women's emancipation in India is nothing new. It is a very old debate that comes to limelight whenever a woman is victimized and exploited. Previously only few mighty women, who defied conventions of our patriarchal society went ahead and spoke about empowerment of women. Right now each and every woman does. The idea of women's empowerment in our patriarchal society has been a hostile one. Many feminist (most of them not knowing the real meaning of feminism and treating it as female chauvinism) has been continuously fighting for the right of our Indian women. Now they can really say they have been successful with the passing of Women's Reservation Bill in Rajya Sabha. But sadly, like me, there are many women who questions the validity and importance of this Bill.

Let me take an example of women's empowerment from a country, from which we most of the time copy and try to implement the copied thing in our country - UK. The question of empowerment of women in the English Society is very old. They didn't make any bill to emancipate women or any different rights for them. They had popular women - Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher, etc. But there was a time when the question of emancipation had aroused in their society for the equal rights of women rather than forming some laws and implementing it on people. There were societies which was there to help women make their OWN positions.

India, like them can do just by a mass uprising or giving serious attention to a woman's issues and interest. Let make this clear - NO WOMAN CAN EMANCIPATE IF IT DOESN'T COME AHEAD, IF IT DOESN'T HAVE THE URGE HERSELF, IF IT DOESN'T FIGHT FOR HER RIGHTS HERSELF. A woman will succumb to power and patriarchy if she doesn't protest no matter how many reservation is made for them. what society will see is more of women like - Mayawati, Jayalalitha, rabri Devi, Uma Bharti and very few like Kiran Bedi. And ironically all these women, even our President didn't needed a women's bill to ensure they reach where they are.

It is true it is very early to question the validity of the Bill but as seen in the past, there has been a strong competition among women for power rather than betterment. There are many women from the rural background and weak who had come today to achieve a reputed spot in society, did they come through reservation?

Many say this bill is an entry point to power. But this entry point was not present earlier then how come the rest came forward? What our society needs in not reservations! Of any form for any individual. Reservations only create discriminations, categorising and proving discrimination is present in our country. It creates inequality. We already have our fundamental rights. Why not work on something that will ensure everyone is able to use it, rather than creating more rights. Sadly all these new rights question the validity of our Fundamental Rights only. How weak we are that we need other rights to ensure our emancipation and how weak we are that we are being denied our our basic Fundamental Rights.

To emancipate women we need to make a woman first aware of her identity. We as a whole need to support and emphasize the need to recognize women's ways of thinking and behaving to be as valuable as those of men. We, not only women but men of all sections needs to come ahead and make a mass movement, socially, to emancipate women against traditional stereotyping into a fixed gender category. We need to abolish the negatives ourselves rather than waiting for someone to and this doesn't refer to emancipation of women only but of all who are backward in our society. Just writing or sharing or voicing like I am won't do, but we have to do it in the real sense. Let us not keep reserving our society and divide it into a reserved and the non-reserved.