Human history is full of bitter experiences in which women suffered
physical torture, mental torment, social constraints, economic
exploitation and political marginalization in all avenues of life.
Women have always been considered inferior on the basis of gender in
several countries of the world. Women’s participation in the mainstream
political life into the “post-modern area“, continues to be
marginalized. America, for example, as a supposedly “great democracy“,
still has never had a woman President and there still have never been a
female General Secretary of the United Nations in spite of that
Organization’s own cherished Human Rights and gender equality related
Conventions.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton was ambitious to contest Presidential
elections but she lost intra party elections against Barack Hussain
Obama who has been elected the first black president of America to
enter into White House. Indira Gandhi of India and Benzir Bhutto of
Pakistan rose on the political horizon in their respective countries
but both were assassinated. Margaret Thatcher who is hailed as Iron
Lady in the political history of the world successfully governed the
United Kingdom for several years, but did not really in the process
advance the status of women in that country.
In Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wajid and Khalida Zia have been handling
the bridles of political power. Similarly Gloria Aroyo of Philipine and
Angela Merkel of Germany are holding top slot posts of their respective
countries. In India Sonia Gandhi is playing the role of a kingmaker.
These examples testify that there is no flaw in the female community
that can marginalize them in the corridor of power but it is the undue
gender bias that has deprived them of their genuine political rights.
There is not a shadow of doubt that there have been successful
women politicians in the contemporary world. However, if we compare
their numbers with their counterpart male leaders on the crown notch
posts then their digits pale into insignificance and their involvement
in the mainstream national and international political affairs is as
low as water in the River Ravi due to control of its head works by
India.
To talk about women rights in a feudalist society is to show red rag to
male chauvinist feudal bulls. They deliberately keep their women
ignorant and backwards to maintain their dominancy in all affairs. The
feudalism is the major impediment in the way of genuine empowerment of
the women.
Property rights are the main determining factors for persecution of
women in the patriarchal and feudal societies mainly in the developing
countries. For example in the Sub-continent, due to deep-rooted
cultural effects and widespread illiteracy, demanding of property
rights by women from their brothers is considered immoral especially in
the countryside.
Male offsprings sometimes do not permit the marriages of their
sisters throughout their lives so that their husbands and in-laws do
not demand legal share of property. Division of property on the basis
of gender led to family feuds and the murdering of females. If a female
receives her inheritance through legal battle, she is cursed throughout
her life as she has committed an unpardonable sin.
In the subcontinent cruel customs of Satti in India and vicious
traditions of Wani Swara and Karo Kari in Pakistan are continuously
victimizing women. In mutual marriages women are considered commodities
to be exchanged. There are several cases in which a person marries his
sister or daughter with an old bone to get marry with his young sister
or daughter. In one case, the father married his daughter with his
friend's son with surety that his son will marry with his daughter in
exchange. After two years of the marriage, the son refused to marry
with the sister of his brother-in-law. In retaliation, the in-laws of
his sister compelled their son to divorce his wife to let her to bear
the brunt of this social stigma.
Divorce is considered a dishonour in our feudalistic society.
The life of divorced lady remains packed with melancholies and agonies.
She returns to her parents' home. Near and dear ones curse her
throughout her life. After divorce she is forcefully parted from her
children to suffer grief of separating from her own children.
Remarriage of a divorced lady is also disliked in our feudalism
engrossed society. Due to dominant affect of the Hindu culture,
remarriage of a lady even after the death of her husband is not
encouraged in our society.
It is tremendously ironic that victims of rape are humiliated
especially in feudal societies. The mental anguish through which a
modest woman passes after such hair raising tragedy is beyond
imagination. There is no solace for her but a lifelong punishment and
social disgrace for the crime in which she was sufferer. There is
crying need to provide psychological treatment to such victims and the
perpetrators who victimize should be severely punished to make them
example for the rest of such nefarious elements of the society. The UNO
should establish an international institution to assist such victims.
The NGOs should genuinely help these victims instead of using these
them for their personal agendas.
In feudal societies like Pakistan, gender bias is the major
reason for backwardness and illiteracy of women. According to
well-recognized social worker and educationist Mrs Fazila Alian, "The
major hurdle faced by girls in getting educated was and is poverty. The
male child is given preference because he would be the future
bread-earner for the family whereas it is taken for granted that the
female child would eventually get married and leave -- so why waste
money educating her?" [1]
Poverty is also a major problem faced by women community. Begum Sabha
Musharraf while delivering a speech at Micro credit summit commenced in
New York in November 2002 pinpointed towards poverty of family units,
“Inequalities between the richest and the poorest people are widening.
Women are worst hit by poverty and with them the family unit gets
entangled in a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, disease and even
more poverty.” [2]
In the western countries, divorce is a very costly procedure;
therefore, to avoid fixing the problem of divorce, the couples do not
marry and indulge in illicit sexual relations. Millions of couples live
in the western society without marriage under the same roof. Therefore,
the number of illegitimate children is as rapidly increasing in these
states as atmospheric pollution in the squatters of cities of the
developing countries.
It is ironic that people in the developing countries idealize this
morally stressed and shallow western civilization that has deteriorated
the family institution. Due to diverging from socially, religiously and
morally acceptable pathways, the western countries are harvesting
bitter fruits of promptly growing extramarital relations, frequently
progressing sexually transmitted diseases, swiftly mounting gay
marriages, quickly increasing divorce rates and rapidly increasing
illegitimate children.
The western countries got a lot after American Revolution of
1775 and French Revolution of 1789.They got freedom of expression and
democratic culture but they committed two blunders. Firstly, they
divorce religion not only from the affairs of the state but also from
their own lives. Majority of the people have turned into agnostics and
atheists; therefore, they commit sins without any sense of
answerability after deaths. Secondly, they adopted capitalistic economy
that gave birth to materialism and cutthroat competition.
The degradation of family life and our spiritual interconnectedness
with each other as human beings and skyrocketing cost of living pushed
women out of their houses to work in offices, factories and commercial
markets that gave birth to uncountable social evils. Instead of
emancipating women these unfortunate steps have degraded them. Their
femininity is being exploited at their working places by their male
bosses. Old hand fabulous fat cats employ beautiful women as
secretaries. It is an open secret that they use them to materialize
their sensual pleasure in return for monetary benefits.
Shameless chauvinistic oriented commercially inspired
advertisements have made the women a source of income. Women are
projected in such a shameless manner that is against their dignity as
human being. It is disparaging that commercial market vendors are
exploiting their femininity for the sake of fat wads of bank notes.
Telecasting of women in the movies as a sexual commodity has further
deteriorated their social status.
Co-education in various learning institutions is another illusory way
of empowering women. They are deceptively taught that they can grow
more normally with males then females. Let us examine the elite
institutions of any country on the surface of this globe. Every sane
person can find uncountable social evils in these institutions that are
the by-products of these genderless institutions. In co-educational
institutions female students are being exploited by the male teachers
and vice versa especially for giving undue favour in examination and
educational career. The students of these institutions concentrate on
seeking proper couple for sexual pleasures instead of concentrating on
their education.
Dr Younis did an unprecedented task to emancipate the poor
women of his country from the shackles of poverty. The international
community has recognized his services by awarding him and his Grameen
bank the Nobel Peace Prize. The other countries should follow this
brilliant example for economic emancipation of their women. In the
Northern Areas of Pakistan and Balochistan, women have great penchant
about embroidery. Their handicrafts need to be institutionalized. The
government should provide full facilities for this purpose. Feudalism
that is major barrier in empowerment of women can be rooted root out
through introducing genuine democratic culture rather than synthetic
one.
Women have been victimized by dogmatic clergy in the name of
religion, exploited by the stagnant minded feudal lords in the name of
cruel customs and traditions, and commercialized by nudity-loving
liberals in the name of modernism. O’ the victimized and exploited
community of the world you have to travel a long distance to acquire
your due rights. You should live in graceful and dignified manner and
not let sick-minded pornographers to exploit your feminism. You must
'keep hope alive' while marching towards your destiny of honourable
social status, educational qualification, political participation and
economic emancipation. You have to break the back of feudalism that is
major barrier in granting due rights to women. But you must never
forget your duty of rejuvenation of family institution because it is
perpetually decaying because you have been compelled to turn a blind
eye towards this responsibility because a mother is heart of each
family.
You must groom your offsprings to polish their constructive faculties
to give good nations to the international community. You must educate
yourself because only an educated mother can perform a commendable role
for his family. Ruby Manikan fittingly attributed, “If you educate a
man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman you educate a
family.“ [3]
Endnotes:
1. Fazila Aliani, cited at,
LINK
2. Begum Sabha Musharraf ,cited at,
LINK
3. Ruby Manikan, Indian religious leader, given at Twitter, cited at,
LINK
