The Women’s Day has come and gone. But it did not mean anything to the illiterate and the suppressed women. Most of men as well as women are ignorant of women’s right in the country. It is acknowledged that women are treated unequal and are under-represented. Majority of the illiterate in the country are women and the enrolment rate of the girls is far below that of the boys. They are also coerced into sex, trafficked and their rights perpetually infringed. It is also true that they need to be given their share of the legitimate rights such as employment, healthcare, social welfare and other rights. It is also true that decades of patriarchal dynamics shaped the society against women knowingly or unknowingly.

But what is it that keeps women at bay? The answer is a complex combination of psyche, tradition and flawed concepts harboured by members of both the sexes in equal measure. In fact, in large parts of the country, women themselves have acted as an insurmountable hurdle to their own cause. Illiterate mothers are ill at ease sending daughters to schools, and so are they in accommodating them in other progressive spheres. Agreed, men have tended to rein in women so far. But there are women, literate and loud, who have risen in rank and respect by riding piggyback on those very illiterate womenfolk only to leave them high and dry after achieving their objective. Yet there are women, who trumpet the uplift of the female sex — rightly so — but without hesitating to ignore other people’s rights in the process. So much so that, feminism, in most cases, is projected as a high decibel anti-men campaign, which is so fundamentally incorrect. There is need for change. But most of the misguided approach through ill-informed means and methods will only inflict collateral damage to a process that, like charity, has to begin first at home.

An educated woman, it has been established, is more likely to raise smaller, healthier and prosperous families. Women have to be educated not because that paves way for only prosperity. They have to be educated because women have as much right as men to do so. And that holds true in all other aspects too. But if the decision of the parents in effecting such a change is vital, the state needs to ensure that a child, male or female, is not barred from the classroom due to the parents’ ill-informed decision or some other pressure. They need to be empowered. Free education until higher secondary level for girls, for one, is a viable option. If women’s economic empowerment is important so is the state’s duty of implementing the women’s policies. The battle ahead is a long drawn one but gender equality cannot be achieved until both sexes realise that men and women are equal.