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Empowering Women

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
Beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be
Brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission
To do the same.
_{Marianne Williamson}

If we have been blessed with a woman in our life, we have been given a precious gift. It is our simple human duty to love her, nurture her and respect her. And given her present low status in much of Indian society, it is our responsibility to help her empower herself.

It is important to understand what an empowered woman is, so we can be enthusiastic about liberating our women, not fearful of this idea. An empowered woman has self-confidence and high self-esteem. She respects herself and invites others to treat her with dignity and respect. She is capable of being self-sufficient, whether she works outside the home or not. She is considerate, compassionate and has a great capacity to love. Empowered women provide tremendous support and strength to men; they do not overpower them. They enrich the world around them with their presence and purpose.

Study after study has shown us that when women are fully empowered and engaged, all of society benefits.
_{Asha-Rose Migiro, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General}

India has been a patriarchy for a long time, but it is time now to move forward; it is time to develop into a society that is neither male-dominated, nor female-dominated, but where men and women are equal – socially, politically and economically. This is not an impossible dream. There are many Western societies, patriarchal until just a few decades ago, which have made great strides towards achieving this dream. We can do it too.

There are some simple things we can do to break away from prevailing customs to transform the lives of the women around us.

To demand dowry or to accept gifts which are “freely given” by a girl’s family are such an accepted norm that most people do not even think they are doing something wrong or potentially hurtful. In fact, dowry has such a powerful social sanction that the boy’s family does not hesitate to openly talk about what they are getting (“das lakh ki party hai” – a proposal has come from a girl’s family willing to give 10 lakhs of rupees) and the wedding guests feel no awkwardness when they “view” the dowry which the girl’s family has had to display for all to see. To break a social custom that has become so entrenched will take great courage.

The power to break this social evil rests with the young men of today and their parents. To demand dowry is wrong. To accept gifts, even if they are not asked for, is wrong. Dowry reduces a woman to a commodity – an item to be bartered. When we indulge in it, we weaken her and her family from the very outset, and true love and harmony can never flourish in such an atmosphere. Allowing a woman to be truly equal is the hallmark of a strong, secure man.

Any young man who makes dowry a condition of marriage discredits his education and his country and dishonours womanhood.
_{Mahatma Gandhi}

The girl’s parents no doubt experience great societal pressure to give dowry. However, if we have not been asked for a dowry and we are giving it anyway, we are doing our daughter a great disservice. Why must we “sweeten the pot” when we get her married? Are our daughters not a gift in themselves? Why is it only the girl’s parents’ obligation to give the couple a good start? Should this not come equally from both sides?

To the extent possible, let us try to be more concerned with our daughter’s welfare than with what society will say. The duty of a girl’s parents is to give her a good education and a strong moral framework. After that, it is up to the young couple to make a life for themselves on the strength of their own hard work and merit. When we lavish the boy’s family with expensive gifts, these gifts create an expectation and perpetuate a power imbalance that our daughters will never be able to break.

Why have we blindly accepted the tradition that the girl’s family must bear the entire expense of the wedding? Does it seem either right or fair? Could not both the boy’s family and girl’s family share the expenses so the entire burden does not fall on her parents? If we have a son we can make this choice and start a new tradition.

Some families cannot afford expensive weddings and the societal pressure to throw a lavish wedding creates a burden of debt that takes years to repay. Some families have been blessed with an excess of wealth and they rationalize: why should we not spend this money on a much beloved daughter? Perhaps we should ask ourselves: what is the motivation behind throwing a lavish wedding? Is it love for our daughter, or our own ego raising its head, urging us to show off our status, wealth and success? A lavish wedding and expensive gifts are not a symbol of our love for our daughter.

If we have an excess of wealth, we can consider quietly giving it to the couple when they need the help or giving it away in charity. The world will not know about it, but the Lord will. For the benefit of all society, marriages are best kept as simple as possible. Simplicity, modesty and understatement are great virtues.

Without a doubt there is tremendous societal pressure to marry off our daughters early. Without a doubt the safety of our unmarried daughters is a concern. But a girl below eighteen years of age is just a child. At that age, she is extremely vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment in her husband’s home. Early pregnancy and childbirth ruin her health and are, in fact, a risk to her life. Besides, this child loses the precious opportunity to gain an education and develop her personality. Most importantly, she loses her childhood, the few carefree, joyful years she could have had before the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood commence.

Very often, young women suffer in silence because we, the society around her, do not support her and her parents. Crimes against women and dowry-related abuse go unreported because these young women are afraid we would judge them harshly. Let us try to be less judgmental and more supportive of the daughters in our community.

Let’s welcome our new daughter-in-law into the family with joy and give her the same love and respect we give our own son. This will help create an atmosphere of peace, love and harmony in our home.

If a woman is unable to conceive, her husband could be equally responsible. If a woman is unable to conceive a son, she is not at all responsible. A woman has absolutely nothing to do with the gender of the child; her husband is entirely responsible.

Do not conduct a sex-detection test. Do not keep having daughters or multiple abortions of daughters in your attempt to beget a son. Have at most two children as our country advises, and if the Lord wills that they shall be daughters, so be it.

Girls are as intelligent as boys and as capable as them. The results of school examinations and the administrative services exams regularly show the outstanding performance of girls with many of them topping the merit list. The benefits of educating our daughters are far-reaching. There is a well-said dictum: Educate a man and you educate one person; educate a woman and you educate a whole family. Studies show that girls who receive just one year of education more than the current average boost their eventual wages by between 10% and 20%.²⁴

So give your daughter the same quality of education you give your son. Give her the same opportunities to learn new things. Give her the tools to stand on her own feet and earn independently. We have been given the gift of reason and choice. Through education, let us give our daughters the same gift: the ability to reason and the power to choose.

Self-sufficiency gives a woman confidence, liberty, identity, security, status and a feeling of sharing in the economic needs of a household.

Working outside the home and earning an independent income tend to have a clear impact on enhancing the social standing of a woman in the household and the society. Her contribution to the prosperity of the family is then more visible, and she also has more voice, because of being less dependent on others. Further, outside employment often has useful educational effects, in terms of exposure to the world outside the household.
_{Dr Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom}

There are many women, however, who choose not to work outside the home because financially they can afford not to, and personally they feel fulfilled in their role as homemakers. Let us give equal value to a woman’s role as a professional and as a homemaker, irrespective of the choice she makes.

How can we hold a woman responsible for bringing bad luck into the family and causing her husband’s death? Aren’t the breaths he is destined to breathe determined even before he is born?

Let us do our utmost to support her and her children during this difficult time, both financially and emotionally. And let us encourage these women to remarry, so they may start life anew.

Women, especially those who do not work outside the home, almost unanimously feel they have thankless jobs. There are a myriad small details that go into their jobs – from tying shoelaces, to buying new clothes for ever-growing children, to making cups of tea, to making a phone call to a sick relative – none of which seem to amount to anything. We know now that over time all these little things amount to a lot: they create well-brought-up children, happy homes, and strong family relationships; these actions are, in fact, the glue that creates strong, bonded families and communities. However, while a woman is performing these actions, she feels unappreciated and taken for granted.

Do what you can to make your wife or mother feel appreciated, help her with some of her chores, and watch your relationship become transformed. Simple acts of appreciation will radiate well-being into the home.

Why do we feel our daughters cannot inherit the family property or the family business? Are our daughters not part of the family? What is the harm if our daughter inherits our wealth?

When you convey a clear message to all your children that your daughter will inherit an equal share, you empower her immeasurably.

When you cut a daughter out of an equal share in the inheritance, you send a signal of unequal love and value.

The biggest hope for change lies with future generations. Let’s treat sons and daughters in the same home with equal love and fairness, teach brothers to respect and honour their sisters, and raise our sons to believe that women are equal to men in all respects. This is a fundamental shift that has the potential to save the next generation of women. This crucial responsibility has been entrusted to the parents of sons.

Today, our daughters are part of a society that idolizes sons. Right from childhood, girls are made to accept the norms of a patriarchal and male-dominated society and they grow up accepting themselves to be inferior to boys. The greatest gift you can give your daughter is to empower her with high self-esteem. The way to do this is to treat her as an equal: love her equally, educate her equally, and give her equal opportunities. Encourage her to achieve more, to assume responsibilities that are normally considered to be in the male domain. And let’s make it clear from the very beginning that she will get an equal share in the inheritance.

A young woman with high self-esteem will go on to make you proud. She will have the courage to say no to pressure over dowry; she will have the courage to say no if there is pressure to have a sex-detection test; she will have the courage to say no if she is asked to abort her baby daughter. She will be independent and self-sufficient. She will expect to be treated with respect and she will raise a daughter who has high self-esteem as well.

A young woman empowered with high self-esteem will be a catalyst of change.

I was my parent’s laadli (beloved daughter). It is because of my parents’ upbringing that I am what I am today. It entirely depends upon the parents, on how they bring up their girl-child. Educate her, make her financially self-reliant and give her the self-respect she deserves ... If you [parents] think that your girls are weak, it is not them but your upbringing which is weak. If my parents had the same thought process, I wouldn’t be who I am today. Their thinking was strong and therefore I grew up to be a strong individual. You can also do the same. Bring up your girl-child with care. Make her self-reliant. Self-reliance will come with education and self-reliance is power. If you do this your girl-children will respect you more and will care for you for life.
_{Kiran Bedi, India’s first female police officer ²⁵}

A woman with high self-esteem has the power to fundamentally change our society because today’s daughter is tomorrow’s mother and mother-in-law. If girls are taught to value themselves and boys are taught to value girls and women as equals, we will finally be able to rid ourselves as a society of the evils of inequality and oppression.

The law of the land could not be more clear: It is illegal to sex-select. Under this broad missive, there are several others: it is illegal to conduct a sex-detection test; it is illegal to advertise sex-detection tests; it is illegal to run an unregistered clinic. By the same token, it is equally illegal to give or take dowry.

Let us uphold the laws of our land.

Although many people are aware that sex-selection occurs in our country, very few are aware of the scale at which it is being practised and of the horrific social consequences of allowing it to continue unchecked.

So spread the word among neighbours, friends and relatives, and spread the word among “influencers” – teachers, doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians, administrators and the media. Awareness of the crisis is the first step. Inequality and sex-selection will only stop when the call against them becomes a national crusade.

Society must do its part to treat women fairly, equally and compassionately. But in the end, women themselves must understand one fundamental fact: the most basic and important things in life, like freedom, equality and empowerment cannot be given by others; they have to be taken. Like spirituality, they have to be worked for, understood, and struggled for. It is only after striving for our freedom and empowerment that we will realize how important it is to us, and we will work to protect it and hold on to it. If it is just handed to us on a platter, we will not understand its value and it will be easily lost.

Society will help us, but it is up to us women to organize our strengths, individually and collectively; it is up to us to reach out and empower ourselves.

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