Changing Stereotypes

This year's International Women's Day was held on March 8 under the theme 'inspiring change'. The day is marked to celebrate the social, political and economic achievements of women while focusing world attention on areas requiring further action. The day was first recognized by the United Nations in the year 1975 and since then it has been held under appropriate themes ranging from human rights to non-violence to gender equality to their role in decision making. Does having an international women's day really help their cause? Have conditions of women folk improved over the years? Is there greater gender equality and acknowledgement of their rights? Are we anywhere close to ending violence against women and girls? Has the system made progress to give women access to decision making? All these are important questions that need to be asked and worked on if we are at all serious about addressing the needs and concern of our women folk.  

 Mere symbolism and lip service is not going to be enough. To make women's day memorable, is it enough to just offer compliments or discount offers as is being done by advertisers, trying to market their products or services. On March 8, leading newspapers in India carried pages of colourfully designed messages aimed to salute the spirit of womanhood. However the real intent of such publicity was to market more and more goods. There was nothing that really grabbed attention of women issues or the real concerns facing them. One such message or advertisement called for celebrating the spirit of womanhood with offer of spa, beauty and massage packages. Another bizarre advt offered a price discount worth 20 times the woman's age on a certain range of smartphones in order to make women's day 'memorable'. Really, better ways can be found to celebrate the spirit of womanhood.  

In fact in many ways, especially for the purpose of marketing, women continue to be portrayed as sex objects, some in subtle ways. Women continue to be exploited. Their portrayal in the mass media (such as television, film and advertising) is disrespectful to say the least. Not only is it bad in taste but such kind of portrayal has an harmful effect on society, increase in the likelihood and acceptance of sexual or even domestic violence against women and girls. A UNESCO report published a few years ago points out that given such stereotype portrayal of women in the media, it will take another 75 years to achieve gender equality in the media. This is certainly not good news given that unless women are better portrayed in the media, their overall condition will hardly improve.  

Efforts must be made to educate our society. As Nagaland Governor Ashwini Kumar rightly remarked on the occassion of a programme to observe international women's day, a collective effort must be made to remove all obstacles that prevent women from achieving their full potential. In the context of Naga society, this will require not just a 're-look at our old traditions and customs', as the Governor mentions but perhaps improving the justice dispensing mechanism (rule of law) and enforcing human rights standards in our land. The different manifestation of violence and ill treatment against women as witnessed even in the recent past points to the insensitivity of the present system and the resultant atrocities towards our women folk. At the end of the day, women actually don't need a special day to celebrate their worth. Rather they need society to evolve into a safe and enabling place that allows them to achieve their full potential while ensuring a life of fairness and respect due to them.