What's to empower anymore

This piece won the second prize in a nation wide competition under another pen name I use. This piece was written in August 2012: reference to certain points may therefore seem old. 

It just seemed right to add it here now as a tribute to the soon approaching 2013 International Women's Day.

It is often said that the growth and survival of a nation is directly linked to the way its women are nurtured and kept. In several Asian and Islamic countries, even African countries women are still treated as liabilities or showpieces.

As a subject, women’s empowerment is a topic widely discussed, debated and lost. But it still requires a lot more work and effort to meet the basic needs of every woman in the world.

Firstly, when we talk of women’s empowerment we shouldn't focus on the women of developed cities and countries only. The way to judge the plight of women is by studying the women of the world. While one part of the world sees a significant rise in the number of women CEO’s and corporate executives, another part sees things differently.

Let’s talk about India to begin with. Deep in the rural villages of our vast country, women are born with mouths but are told to keep them shut. In this century, where women have proven that they are capable of running multi-million dollar companies, we in India get our rural women married off before they are even capable of bearing a child. They may in most cases not even be adults. And it isn’t uncommon for rural families to choose to educate their sons while keeping the daughters at home. The common belief is that a woman should learn to cook, clean and keep a man.

If the women of the world need to be empowered, we need to start small but we need to start now.

Recently in the Indian news there was talk of how female infanticide and low female to male sex ratios are staring us in the face in most villages and towns within India. How can women be empowered if they aren’t allowed to be born.

And if they aren’t allowed to be born, they are not being given the chance to grow.

As a topic, women’s empowerment has a long way to go. Until the moment that women are viewed as assets, things will not change. But, sadly, the basic principles have been lost along the way. When we talk of empowering women we talk of trying to educate them, give them jobs, make them confident...
But, empowering them is about changing the attitude toward women the world over. The day women even in the remotest places on Earth are given the chance to really live is the day we would have empowered women in its true sense.

Paroma Sen