- Marina Tsvetaeva — 'Wings are freedom only when they are wide open in flight. On one's back they are a heavy weight.'
- Due to modernization most of us are now against the practices female infanticide, dowry, domestic violence against women etc. However these are the very severe and hence very apparent forms of gender inequality.
- This extreme spectrum of inequality, doesn't require a very high level of compassion & awareness to call it injustice. The less severe forms of inequality would be denying female education, unequal pay, work place sexism etc. It naturally take a higher level of awareness to realize this.
- The very subtle forms of gender inequality are something that most of us are still unaware of. The impact of our age old patriarchal society and culture is so strong, hard wired, deeply ingrained and etched in our minds that the subtle male chauvinistic attitudes and behaviours are a norm for us. We are unaware that most of us are actually psuedo- liberal, psuedo- modern and do not practice gender equality in true sense, in our own households. Women and men both perpetuate gender inequality in day to today life without even realizing it.
- In reference to a male, following scenarios seem funny, not imaginable and movie plot like ...
- a father/son/son in law doing cooking, serving food, doing dishes, laundry, sweeping, baby sitting, sweeping, asking for permission to go out while the equally educated and earning mother/ daughter/daughter in law are relaxing, watching TV, passing orders, complaining food was too bland and being irritable that they can't find their ironed cloths.
- man's name is being changed after marriage.
- man shifting to wife's home with her parents after marriage and is expected immediately to mingle with them as if he has know them for ages, has to impress them with his culinary skills.
- man is now expected to groom/dress /behave in a particular manner to be identified as a married man.
- man is expected to perfectly BALANCE home and work.
- a certain kind of 'cultured' men being considered perfect MARRIAGE MATERIAL, to be taken home by the woman to her father.
- a man completely dependent financially on his wife and expecting her to fulfil all his materialistic needs.
- These scenario although funny also provoke a kind of offensive and humiliating feeling, since its too western , too feministic, too unequal. Male unequality is so unacceptable its almost not digestible. The same scenario in the female reference is such a norm, we don't even realize that the discrimination is being made.
- In current times when females are educated and working too, the home now becomes a joint responsibility to be equally shared.
- True equality wont prevail until we all become aware of these subtle and indirect forms of inequality and be able to look beyond our cultural conditioning to practice equality in true manner.
- Respecting a woman as a person. No more no less. Respecting her uniqueness, her individuality, her wishes, her opinions, her choices and her freedom in the smallest day to day things.
- We gave our women the wings of education, but if we don't let her take off, she will perish under the weight of it. Only when she herself and people around her become aware and be compassionate/ considerate , only then she will be liberated in the true sense, only then she will fly and reach the sky! #internationalwomensday
