What are Wings for?

 Where do women find their position in society? Do they find themselves still chained to the burning hearths in the kitchen, confined to domestic chores? Or have they identified in them the genial spirit to excel as any human beings by breaking the chains on being women? 

To be caring mothers and dutiful wives were the measuring rods to qualify women in their post-wedded phase of life years ago. Surprisingly, there are women in the community who still uphold the above-said parameters to epitomize themselves as 'woman/ wife of qualities'. There are well-educated and amply qualified to be employed women who feel insecure and inferior because they fail to satisfy the stomachs of their husbands and family. They feel inferior because they are not certified as 'good' wives! These specifications are internalized by the girls since their childhood and are conditioned to comply with these unwritten norms practiced unquestioningly by society for ages.

During interactive sessions with college students, one would not stop wondering when girls in their teens gape to the question about their career goals. 'Women Empowerment' programmes are hugely in fashion. Giving a session once a year to 'empower' them seems like a custom. Have we ever followed up on the result of the session after a year?  Why is it that women are attempting to be constantly empowered? Will a day be witnessed in the near future where women stand empowered naturally as men are? This education must be above the academic syllabus. This education is to be slowly and steadily provided from home, and family. Even a week's workshop is not going to change the mindset of girls! Instead. they can be trained to mold the generation to come who shall not be victims of the existing gender parity.

We live in a country where four women became a part of history by bringing gold medals for the first time in Lawn Balls in the Commonwealth Games. We live in a state where out of 14 Districts, 10 are led by women IAS officers. Still, girls have their jaws down at the question on where they will be in 5 years! Flipping through the pages past, one can read that most of the women who had commendable accomplishments faced either a tough time in their life or were goal driven and career-focused since their childhood. 

Beena Kannan, the business tycoon, waded through hardships when she lost her husband who had been bedridden for years. Bringing up her kids was a challenge that she took up and lived up to what Seematti is at present. While the world wondered and sympathized with the lost fame of Cafe Coffee Day when all at once the brain behind the show drowned himself in the waters leaving behind heavy debt, Malavika Hegde held tight to the baton that her husband dropped in the midway. The keys to her success were perseverance and determination with which she bought things under her control. 

They say women are like tea bags. They get stronger when dipped in hot water. Why should one wait to be dipped or get fallen into adverse situations to show the real power? If women possess that potential, why does it lay latent until favourable circumstances arise? 

Lessons on becoming successful and self-reliant are to be taught to girls as we do to boys. Thoughts, beliefs, limitations and freedom are not served equally and in equal proportions in front of boys and girls, even from home. Though they are seated next to each other in the classrooms, taught by the same group of teachers from the same textbooks, they are conditioned to compartmentalize what they learn into what is for girls and what is not for girls. Real empowerment will be achieved once this phenomenon ceases. Girls should be taught to be independent, voiced and bold instead of molding themselves to be good, obedient, adjusting and voiceless wives. The best education is received not from elite institutions, but from home. The best teachers are not who are employed at the educational institutions but their parents. 

Teach girls the significance of earning rather than being a financial manager of somebody's pocket. Teach her to dream higher and grab a quality life with the money she earns. Remind her that she too has wings that are fit to help her soar swiftly rather than plucking the light feathers off her plumage and keeping her in servitude. Remind them, if they forget, that the wings are not mere ornaments but are weapons to take flights to the unfathomed heights of the blue sky! They are not helpless sweet roses bloomed to shelter worms only to turn a 'sick-rose' in the morning but are those that carry thorns to fight and survive to glow brighter.

Ms. Saritha. K

Head, Department of English, Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna