International Women’s Day 2021: Helming the Ship to Prosperity

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The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of women who are valued. – Michelle Obama

8^th of march is not just a regular day on the calendar, it is a day attributed to women internationally in order to celebrate them and recognise their significance all across the globe. The aim of this day is to also recognise the problems that women face and the inequality that they are subjected to simply because of their gender. Despite of all the advancements that have been made in the world today, gender equality is still a far-fetched dream. There are 2.6 billion legal restrictions that have been put into place just to stop women from even having the access to the same job portals as that of men. There are innumerable arenas and in almost every arena woman are placed at a disadvantage, a very apt example of the same would be the fact that less than 25% of parliamentarians are women.

This forces us to ask the question, are women not equally capable to men or is it just a mindset that we are too afraid to change? In a pandemic scenario more so, women have had to face the brunt and take several new challenges head on which makes the theme of International Women’s Day even more accurate, Achieving an equal future in a pandemic world. The theme puts into sharp focus the fact that women need to have an equal say and they need to be made equal decision makers and stake holders with regard to everything and in particular the policymaking procedure.

But, in order to implement these, the first step would be to break the barriers of culture, economy and history that have been kept in place far too long to stop women from achieving their dreams and taping into their true potential. In many parts of the world, women are not only paid less for the same job but they are also not given a rise in position and in turn made to work in vulnerable conditions. Gender parity is an absolute must and change must happen in that direction sooner rather than later.

Women are an integral part of the society and they dispense numerous roles in all walks of life for which they not only don’t get any adequate materialistic return but there is a lack of the basic respect that they should be awarded as well. Harassment of women at work places is also something that needs to be talked about more and stringent measures for the guilty need to be put in place to ensure that at least women feel safe walking into their jobs.

This day celebrates the acts of courage that shown everyday by a woman just to make her place known in this patriarchal society. The call for feminism becomes higher each day and it is time for women to start supporting their women, because ushering in change would not be easy but it would undoubtedly be worth it.

A very happy International Women’s Day and a big kudos to all the women out there!