EMBRACE THE CHANGING ATTITUDE OF A WOMAN

“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.”

   -- Roseanne Barr

A lot of articles are being published lately in the newspaper and social media regarding crime against women, women empowerment and sexism. One article that caught my attention was ‘Attitudes on Indian women must change’ published in The Hindu dated Monday, June 22, 2015 by Vishakha N. Desai.

The writer emphasized about her meeting with a senior Indian diplomat. He was raised a question about the horrendous treatment of women in India. He went on to intricate that it was not a ‘Country Specific’ problem. Rather US has more number of rapes and sexual assaults than India and he concluded that the media, should stop singling out India on this issue.

Well, this has been the abhorrent attitude by all class of people towards women in our country right from the time when a man thought he was superior to a woman for all the right and wrong reasons. It is still a mystery about who or rather what brought this misconception about women. May be it is engraved in the thought process of man going on from ages and ages.

The actual problem is the attitude of women towards themselves. We women are yet to discover the real power that we possess. We tend to suppress our thoughts to the age old credence that were inculcated into us from the very beginning of our existence. When I was in school, any important circular that sent home was said to be read and signed by my father from my teacher who belonged to very race of womanhood. As a child I always thought my father had an upper hand in the decision making. Consequently it is assumed that women are not capable of making decisions.

Another derisory incident which I personally faced was when I took up a course which involved mechanical subjects. A few of my well-wishers and friends doubted whether I would be able do the mechanical work involved. That was the mentality of my friends who were girls and belonged to this present and so called ‘modern techno savvy’ generation.

We are desperately in need of an embracing change in the attitude of a man and a woman. As rightly said by Roseanne Barr we women have to learn to just take over the power that rightly belongs to us rather than letting someone else to take it over and misuse it. We have to pave our own paths to make our ‘Identity’ strong and intact in our society. We need to change our preferences, empower ourselves to fight the challenges with an infallible attitude and style. Lastly we need to be brave enough to say, “Yes, I am a woman”.

 - Maheshwari M