`Trying to remember our way back into past realities, past rooms, past beliefs is a first step towards measuring the depths of change in ourselves and the world. It’s also a reminder that the progress we may now take for granted is the result of many major accomplishments of the past and just the beginning of changes to come.`
Gloria Steinem (The way we were – and will be)
Words that reminded me, when I got a happy Women’s Day message, (welcome for the goodwill it carried) that March 8 is not a day for just wishing one another, or for celebrity women and beautiful actors to come on shows sponsored by cosmetic companies. Not even for shaving blade companies to use women as part of an aggressive campaign against the stubbled look. It’s a day for thinking of where we are and where we want to be.
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And why in 2013, decades after consciousness-raising, and waking up to major women’s issues like health, education, better facilities in working places and millions of other things, we have gone back to a very basic demand – security? Why has this backsliding happened after years of struggling for equal rights and opportunities?
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Why, after fighting sexual discrimination and gender-bias in society, are women reduced to asking for protection? This, when the protectors are the police, whose very jobs make them exaggerate their male attitudes. And why do we expect changes in the laws when our legislators are part of an almost all-male political system, totally patriarchal and insensitive?
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Where have we gone wrong? How do we get on to the right track?
Shashi Deshpande is a Sahitya Akademi and Padma Shri winning author of 10 novels, four children’s books and countless short stories. She has also penned several essays, now available in a volume entitled Writing from the Margin and Other Essays.