I was watching Melinda and Bill Gates over at The tonight show with Jimmy Fallon, where they were each asked a common question:
What superpower they wish they had to change the world?
Melinda: Time, in my field of work I have realised that women all over do so much work in twenty four hours, we need to give them back their time. And they are taking care of the child (which they want to) and managing house chores. Either we give them time or share their work.
Bill: Energy, energy is the most fascinating and basic thing. You switch on the light and there goes a bulb. And many countries still don’t have it. The younger generation needs to put in work into science and all of it to build technologies that can produce energy, keeping in mind the climate changes.
It is almost as if despite being connected by a common cause of greater good their ideas cannot meet. They each have different ways of looking at the world. Varied colors of glasses to view life.
Men and women.
Where is the need for equality?
Why should we even discuss the word equal when we explain genders?
I was fifteen when I almost suddenly started to read more and more about feminism. Maybe it was the effect of growing changes in my body, my sudden awareness about opposite gender a tad too much or perhaps the idea that I could some day be subjugated to the need of this discussion.
And in an instant I had decided. Feminism is not needed. Awareness is.
Funny it has been so many years and I have still not modified this basic tenet of my understanding.
This year’s International Women’s day theme is ‘parity’. And it comes in at the right time for our country.
We are undergoing a transition. Our meaning of life and things all getting modified. Our mothers no longer around, our wives running the show with swag and our daughters decidedly wanting to be more rebel for our comfort.
This word is needed more and more.
What is parity?
the state or condition of being equal, especially as regards status or pay
And mathematically?
(of a number) the fact of being even or odd.
*
Why parity?
Why not a men’s international day? Pops comes the question from many. In between whatsapp jokes and giggles, I often pretend I haven’t heard these words right.
When Melinda Gates said , women need time. I thought to myself. Women and their issues need time.
Why not a men’s international day? They insist often.
Who needs a world where we have to find a spot in an all women metro compartment? Who needs a life where fighting for better maternity benefits induces professional guilt?
Who needs to hear from their parents that they have no problems if we stay out late at night, but they do not trust the society.
Who needs to go all out and celebrate an International Women’s Day at all?
When people challenge the idea of feminism, it hurts my heart to explain to them that we too wish to live in a world where there is no need of feminism.
Parity is not equality. No. Parity is understanding that yes we are different. We have different needs. We wake up to opposite sides of bed.
And hence we need laws, ideas, cultures that cater to these needs. The differences in our needs.
A couple of us bloggers at Write Tribe have decided to blog together under the gamut of International Women’s Day theme ‘Pledge For Parity‘.
Nabanita Dhar started the series for us by writing this lovely post called I #pledgeforParity. Do you? where she goes on to explain a most heartwarming idea:
“The only thing that separates women from anyone else is opportunity.”
Her post got my writing juices thinking and out came the above ranting. She tagged me to write my own take on the theme and in that spirit I invite Corinne Rodrigues of the very famous Everyday Gyaan to write her own musings 🙂
Hop on to her blog tomorrow i.e International Women’s Day to read more on this wonderful topic!
Very deep thinking! The question being, do we need parity? Yes we need it! Most often I think women suffer injustice not only from their male-counterparts but from those of their own gender. How does one tackle that? Women’s Day though a Charade, I think we can just enjoy it as a celebration time.
Yes that works as well. Celebration time 🙂 But more often we need to spread word on our views.. no?
Oh yes! I love how Melinda and Bill are lending their powerful voice to various issues. I particularly enjoyed Melinda’s post about time.
And you’re so right, women’s issues need focus, because there a so many problems that women face and no matter what people say, we live in a world which is deeply biased towards men.
I am slowly becoming a fan of Melinda Gates. Saw the other day on TV as well and loved her again!
I am so glad that you have raised the issue “Why do we need Women’s day at all?” By separating women, I believe that parity cannot be achieved. Men and women should be on the same turf, negating the need for parity
My idea is we need womens day right now. Unfortunately. In fact more so because the turf cannot be same for both. Sensitization of this difference between genders is more required.
Everytime your posts end up making me think more and more..And often I find myself saying, hey I was thinking the same thing but she has articulated it in a much better and matured way..You said it Richa, we don’t want to have to need feminism but unfortunately we do…
And yet your post was the reason why I wrote my own. And funny that I feel the same about your writing many days 🙂
Mind provoking post. Women are powerful. She has the ability and talent to build the nation.
True Vasantha 🙂
During the initial days of my marriage, I couldn’t believe myself what I was hearing from almost all of my female clan. They talked as if I was married just to make my husband’s life easier. When we ourselves teach our kids the basic lessons of inequality, whom else to blame. As mentioned, the whole world need time to solve all these, the whole world need time to give us the place we dream of living.
Yes we need time. And let no one tell you anything otherwise. We require things to be sorted a lot more. Maybe a lot more fast as well.
Great post Richa and I loved Melinda’s thoughts. Look at the unpaid work women do and match it up with the time that they spend across the world. Living in South East Asia, I can’t say I haven’t seen all this. Parity is to say, women don’t want anything special but yes – understand and respect the differences. Support all along.
We want to be ignored yo talking about special. But we need to be ignored to the extent of being understood. Simple.
Thought provoking as usual. I agree with you about women being their own worst enemies. Not only do we accept lower remuneration for ourselves but also accept many other inequities under the pretext that we get “other” benefits. I myself have never “worked” but I know that women face the prejudice of being women all the time and face a lot of pressure to do better than their best. I don’t think women need parity of pay they deserve MORE than men. They are most times more sincere at their jobs, more diligent, more loyal and definitely work harder since they do work at home as well.
Pressure is what is getting to women everywhere/ The idea has not sunk in well with people that multitasking isn’t a quality it is an enforced need.
separately celebrating women’s day itself seems wrong and exhibits the inequality. When on every field women are making all out efforts to be on part with men, this day may not be needed.
The world is divided on this , agree. But I feel this day is needed. To stop everything and give absolute attention to stats related to women issues.
It’s a very keen observation by you, and you have asked all the right questions. The reason we need parity, from a man’s point of view also, is to see feminism and women’s issues as societal problems and not something to ponder instead of other prevalent issues. We need parity to be inclusive.
Amen. Parity to be inclusive 🙂
Hi Richa,
I loved your thoughts.. And feminism! Who would need it if things would be equal in the world. Late night outs, the time is bad and so is the society and that’s why girls aren’t allowed to move out..! I too have pledged and shared my thoughts on my blog!
Cheers
Exactly. And no parent enjoys putting these curfews. That is also a fact.
I’ve seen the best and worst of tradition and I feel that more than anything, this generation here – the ones commenting and writing as bloggers – have a major role to play for the future.
They need to instill the right values for the generation to come so that 20 years from now, Womens Day need not be a thing because everyone KNOWS that women are equal to men.
We can’t keep enforcing gender biases based on old concepts anymore.
Roshan amen to this. Generation now has seen enough transition to make better sense out of such issues. We need clarity in all the possible ways.
We need more love and caring for each other. We need equality in pay for women so that they are not in poverty and that takes love and care. Men have to be willing to do the right thing, and if they loved and truly cared for women and wanted a better world, then they too would want equality for the genders. Women after all their daughters, sisters, and mothers. Just my thoughts.
True Mary women need to be understood. Period.
It is thought provoking what Melinda Gates has to say about women needing more time for themselves.
Here are we talking about equality and parity between genders and there I have the TV blaring in the living room where a saintly person is giving the discourse for the ladies -“tumhare jeevan ka param karvatya pati ki, saas sasur ki sewa karna hai. Isi main tumhara uddhaar hai” and this person has eager ears and trusting minds listening to him. This leads to the question how long and what all do we have to fight against.
Hahaha imagine Anamika. Imagine the road ahead. Time is probably not even to be kept in mind here. Cause it is needed in large chunks! Humare jeevan ka param kartavya aisi baatein inhi logon tak pahunchana hai 🙂
Can totally relate to the thought-provoking views by Melinda when she says that we need to give women their time back or share their work! Even if we could concentrate on that alone, so many women all across the world could have regained their lives back. So much remains to do and so little is done, even though we have made so much progress through technological innovations. Sad that except for a small percentage of women, most women still wage an unfair battle every single day of their lives just to make a survival. Talking about the need to do something on this is a good start, now we need to back it up with some solid work too 🙂
Wage battle. Time battle. Womens battles need time. Thats what I wish to say. We need to give them time to figure out a way…
You know your post reminded me of that Air India’s longest all woman crew flight from Delhi to San Francisco. They were harping this on the news quite a bit which made me wonder on what’s so special. Shouldn’t this be a regular thing anyway?
It made it sound as if women are not generally part of the aviation sector and even if they are, they aren’t generally part of the flight crew.
On another note, they do have an international mens day as well ;).
yes they do! And I often simply retort back saying that who has stopped you from celebrating it? :/
Agree with you. Parity, though a distant dream, is the need of the hour. First, we need a change in attitudes and outlook. If an Akshay Kumar can stay at home while Tina Khanna shoot for something, it sure leads the way.
No I believe what matters in parity is are we perceptive of people’s choices. Simple as that.
I am a firm believer of the fact that we do not need Feminism. But then I visit a small town in UP/Haryana, and I am forced to think ‘No woman, we do’. I guess it still is a long way to go and the need of the hour is change. Rather than focusing on ‘change through feminism or no feminism’
I am a firm believer that it is sad that we still need feminism. But we do, that is a fact.
Sadly we do need feminism. it isn’t a point that I love placing …
There is this poem I had written long back wherein I had said “So you really don’t see what is wrong,In trying to empower what is already strong.”That is what I believe, we are already strong, we don’t need to be empowered, we need to be understood and we need to understand. Honestly that is all that is needed, and all these arguments over feminism will just stop.
Exactly. We need to be embraced as we are. No stronger or weaker 🙂