Women, Violence and Danger

A recent news item in the Reuters (factbox: The world's most dangerous countries for women), is a tumultuous testimony of the onslaught against women that still exists in many parts of the world. It is a lamenting yet noteworthy issue that despite a sociopolitical voyage for gender equality, women’s rueful plight remains a dreary discussion. Some of the countries that rank the highest in this predicament are Afghanistan, Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia. The brutality against women in these countries includes illiteracy and economic discrimination, forced marriages including child marriages, sexual violence and female genital mutilation, honor killings, domestic servitude besides human trafficking. The report suggests that 1 in 11 women in Afghanistan die of childbirth, while 57% of pregnant Congolese women are anemic. Also, 87% of women in Afghanistan are illiterate, while a mere 7.5% women hold parliamentary seats in Somalia, the horn of Africa. Moreover, 40 innocent Congolese women are raped everyday, while 95% of Somalian girls and women are put through genital mutilation. Not far beyond in the race, a 1000 Pakistani girls and women face honor killings, while 50 million infant girls are missing on account of infanticide and feticide in the religiously devout India. Many women in these countries experience physical assault and battery, unfortunately as customary to rustic traditions and the predominant culture of male monarchy. The above statistics may appear antediluvian, but it is a fresh perspective on the existing, and ever exacerbating indignation against women.

What may seem even more depressing is the bitter truth that majority of population in these nations is either unaware of such violent and life threatening tribulations, or perhaps is least bothered until the fire engulfs their own turf. Many times, the victims of these crimes are forced to bear abuse repeatedly and are intimated if they urge to take an action against it. Other times, victims’ emotional vulnerability becomes a vantage point to keep them in a state of denial like a sitting duck for the perpetrators. Also, the fact that some of these countries are an ongoing war zone, and lack a central government system, or are partially ruled by the militia, further extinct the possibilities for social change and investment in women empowerment. Moreover, the influence of theocratic law in some of these countries makes economic reforms preposterous. In addition, incessant absolute poverty and high levels of corruption are some other depriving factors for change. For instance, in India, where women’s economic participation and educating the girl child is on the rise, the country’s social systems appear unsuccessful in impeding female feticide. More importantly, social issues like education, women’s rights, and child marriages are rarely significant as far as political manifestation is concerned. Mostly theses issues appear like a small figurine in the electoral campaigns that often turn gray with time. So, if this is the feat of change, then we sure are in for a failure!

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

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From Stonewall to Same Sex Marriages

In the history of American Gay Rights movement, Stonewall is and shall always be a legend in the pursuit for equal rights. The Stonewall uprising that took place for three endless days in the summer of 1969 in Greenwich village, New York was a protest for pride, and the beginning of a social revolution. At the time when civil rights and the feminist movement were gaining ground, the Stonewall revolt became the keystone for gay liberation and marked the dawn of ‘gay power.’ This year in June, the Stonewall revolution shall celebrate its 42nd anniversary and would once again remind us of the unconstitutional harassment and discrimination against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community. Over four score years later, achieving equality for and full social acceptance of LGBT still remains an unforgettable dream. Many LGBTs, in the recent past, have been open and assertive about their sexual orientation through the support of advocacy and human rights groups. In the past, opinion polls have also shown a change of attitude and perceptions in many Americans, which led to the legalization of civil unions in many states in the U.S. However, civil unions and same-sex marriages are still restricted and are not deemed as an acceptable equal right. Although civil unions provide privileges to same-sex couples as heterosexual couples are entitled to in a marriage, yet civil unions are a compromise over marriage that thus rejects same sex couples’ identity, relationship status, and their civil rights.  

As of now, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire are the five states that legalize same-sex marriages though other U.S. states delimit such rights as degenerative and iniquitous. New York, being the home to gay rights movement currently awaits the decision to legalize gay marriages as a preeminent part of diversity. Issues on LGBT rights and same-sex marriages, however, have been an incessant debate at both federal and state legislative levels with a partisan divide among the Democrats, the Independents, and the Republicans. In addition, the gender and generation gap in the society, the mores of marriage, and the conventional dictates of religion are some additional deterrents to same-sex marriages. The question that thus arises is if the LGBTs would continue to live and die with their minority status? Or would they have to silently suffocate in a democracy that despite being emancipated has forgotten the ideals of equality and freedom? Other overwhelming challenges include if our society is too patriarchal, intolerant, and deep rooted that it cannot accept change? Or if sharing happiness, love, relationship, and intimacy too is a privilege? Finally, who among us decides if the society is too permissive of attitudes about sexuality? And if the religion edifies us to discriminate when it actually teaches us to love and accept differences.

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy:  Barkha Dhar

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Women’s Rights Should Not Be Ostracized

Each day around the world a woman is ostracized. She is abused, neglected, abandoned or ousted from her identity to exist. Her consort, whom she looks up to as her knight in shinning armor becomes her greatest predator. Her valor and enthusiasm for life is often assumed to be audacious. She is continuously prejudiced in her right to survive, in her will to live a life of equality and similitude. Her tolerance for pain and suffering is considered to be her fate and fear. Her emotions are speculated and judged. Soraya. M, a woman sacrificed in the name of honor and stoned to death for alleged adultery almost two decades ago in a village in Iran is a mirror of such tribulation. More than 20 years later, women still are victimized and terrorized around the globe. Their voices are suppressed and their rights are extirpated to shun them of love, dignity and opportunity. 

Soraya.M’s horrific tale, a true story made into a movie by Cyrus Nowrasteh (The Stoning Of Soraya.M, 2008) is a pinch to the soul and a volcanic eruption for the mind. It is not a story of a woman, a village or a country but a story that lapidates the prerogative and state of womanliness. Like her even today many Sorayas are suffocated in relationships, trafficked across borders, abducted to brighten brothels, swindled into sexual drudgery though child marriages, genitally mutilated, beaten and infiltrated through aggravated sexual assault. Are these acts less barbaric than casting of stones? These may not seem as horrifying as stoning. But the screams from such acts emit an equal shrill. If I had simply watched the Stoning of Soraya and wiped my tears that trickled down during the movie’s climax, I would have been incompetent in my service to self and in torching justice for injustice. I hence decided to present my readers with this video to aware and educate on ostracism against innocence, independence and empowerment, which are the basic constituents of woman’s rights. 

In order to understand the necessity to honor a woman’s right; one needs to appreciate the role she plays in our survival. She gives life to gift mankind with the greatest pleasure on earth in being alive. She nurtures in a way that makes one learn the essence of subsistence. As an epitome of love and compassion, she consecrates harmony and happiness in relationships. For man to accept such feature may seem unlikely of his might. But it’s imperative to realize that strength of man’s muscle and character, the power in governances around the orb and the depth of ecclesiastical tenets does not lie in her coercion and crucifixion. With each woman executed physically, mentally and/or emotionally inside her home, on the streets, in business, politics or in foreign lands leaves us with martyrs for causes just like Soraya left with her story for the world to feel her pain. Man and his masculinity shouldn’t just be a symbol of violence and transgression. Likewise regulations and axioms shouldn’t be so gruesome that they become a threat to the spirit and essence of existence. Irrespective of our physicality, for god both men and women are equal for he decides not to reside up above in the blue sky but inside us, in our wisdom and in our deeds. He created man as an epitome of care and courage to fend for his counterpart (not just through marriage or any relationship) but in the chastity of an eclectic circle called humanity. 

So if you are a man and you see a women being expelled of her rights……

• Stand up against violence. You shall be more of a man in doing so
• Care for other women as you would care for your own
• Learn to respect femininity. It may not seem as powerful as masculinity but without it your machismo certainly is incomplete 
• Be an advocate to stop ostracism against women. Talk to peers, family and friends or whoever you think is the smallest dust particle that causes such offense. 
• Everybody says that it’s a man’s world. Is it or isn’t it? is not the question. The real quest is to make this world a better place for everyone to live including every woman you meet in your lifetime, irrespective of her role or abilities.  
• If you are the King, she is the Queen, so treat her like one. You will be a torch bearer for others.  

If you are a woman and you see another woman being blackballed......................

• The best thing you can do is to stop being critical of another woman’s plight  
• Stop mutter or gossip about other woman’s dilemma. Stand up for truth and freedom. It will show your magnanimity and not self-centeredness. 
• A woman standing up for every other woman will empower so many sisters in the spirit circle. It shall lessen half the problems that we women create for each other knowingly or unknowingly throughout our lives. 
• Break the cycle of abuse. Call for help/ emergency or crisis network if you see or know of a woman or child being abused physically, mentally or emotionally.
• Log in http://www.hotpeachpages.net/( an International directory of domestic violence agencies with abuse information in over 80 languages). 

On exposing to such change and bailing out the one in crisis, we shall rescue ourselves from mental handicaps based on discriminations and radical doctrines and realize that women’s rights are human rights.

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/user/BarkhaDhar

International Women's Day - Femininity Is Identity

“In the ambrosial chattels of my dream,
I was born in the mountains, grew up to frisk in the plains
and slide on the oceans to caress the ecstasy of the winds.

In my trance, I had the liberty to effectuate my longings
propel my intentions to veer myself of fears. But angst
I awoke to discern the vagary of my thoughts to
actual, a truth of 'as is' and the aphorism of my state.

In the tangibility of existence, I am far away from the absolute,
gripped so tight in the shackles of confinement and control
and tabooed to lift off my veil.

I am the journey of femininity and my life is a biography of
emotions. In my silence I am auctioned for beauty, in my
hustle I am trafficked for wealth and in felicity I am beguiled
of love.

As a little girl I am forbidden to emancipate, in my youth
I am in a peril of assault. As a co-worker, I cope with harassment
and as a daughter-in-law; I am asked if the gold that I brought in my
marriage is authentic or fake.

My saga is an unending face-off with time and my name
holds the aura of my gender. I am the spirit of a woman and my
femininity bears the quintessence of my identity”. - Barkha Dhar

These verses are my own, a composition dedicated to International Women’s Day, which celebrates the liberation and the elevation of global women force socially, economically and intellectually. From its inception as a revolutionary movement in 1908 to United Nations subsequent role of signing the charter in 1945 to promote gender equality, March 8Th has seen evolution of women’s identity as both conspicuous and crucial for social change. With massive about face in the plight of women through education and equal opportunity, International Women’s Day has unequivocally advocated, identified and emancipated sagacity of the female gender. As a catalyst of vicissitude, this day has induced energy and hope in each woman to surpass the dictum of gender abuse and bias. Despite mindful cognizance and global recognition of women in Academia, Business and Industry, Science and Technology, Society and Politics, Arts, Media and Entertainment, Religion and Spirituality, femininity’s   docile face nonetheless bemoans oppression.  

According to Richard Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, “Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of the means of production.” According to UNFPA, “Women currently constitute over two-thirds of the illiterate adult population worldwide. They also represent 70 per cent of the planet's poor — a reality that became more severe after the recent global economic crisis”. United Nations Development Fund for Women states, “About 22 million were expected to have lost their jobs in 2009”. Also, United Nations statistics on violence against women reveals, “globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. 4 million women and girls are trafficked annually and So-called "honor killings" take the lives of thousands of young women every year, mainly in North Africa, Western Asia and parts of South Asia”. With such facts and figures, claiming that most women share equal rights and are empowered is a statement that I would take with a grain of salt. These statistics speak loud of the fragile sheath that a woman is ensconced under and her potent cue for change, a transformation not just for a fraction of us but for the entity of femininity. Accentuating individuality in each woman locally and internationally is no more need of the hour but a quest of an era. 

Recognizing women’s rights as a core of a nation’s political and social agenda is a means to an allusive beginning. However gender equality and role parity is also an individual responsibility. It starts with reconnecting to self and to similar others in the community, family and society. Sharing common goals and driving developmental motives collectively are some ways we can accredit ourselves with opportunities and achievements. An understanding of the fact that there is a thin line between being empowered and feeling empowered is initiating action in the right direction. Reinventing ourselves at any age or through any experience in life inspires us to aggregate against gender violence and discrimination in order to brace a progressive demeanor. Institutionalizing such progress as our mission can help us think alike and feel alike, a trait that break evens our emotions and ambitions and a pledge that conjoins us. Reinstating this grandeur time and again and not just today can rupture any social impediments that cease the rightful apportion of freedom, fairness and justice among genders. To begin such journey, redesigning our destiny indeed shall be an expedient step.

Copyright (c) 2009-present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy: dryicons.com

Black History Month

The 4th of February indeed is a remarkable day to write this post as it’s the birth anniversary of Rosa Parks, ‘Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights movement’. Her resistance to racial segregation back in 1955 has been auxiliary to the history of Social change in America. Her action that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott is one of the many notable and moving incidents of the American History and just not Black history.  The courageous acts of Thurgood Marshall, a Civil rights lawyer, who won the famous ‘Brown Vs. Board of education of Topeka(1954)’ case that ended the segregation between black and white kids in public schools, is yet another adjutant of America’s racial history. The phenomenal address, ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ by Sojourner Truth at Akron, Ohio back in the dark tunnels of time, and the unforgettable acts of so many other civil rights activists, all have been  incidents of evolution, metamorphosis and America’s rebirth on the racial map.

From its inception as Negro history week in 1926 to its current entity as black history month, this period is a celebration of freedom, identity, diversity, reverence and remembrance and most of all expression, opinion and action. Sometimes it’s hard to understand that what took America so long to end apartheid? Why did this nation and its children have to suffer for long because of their color? Why did America have to wait 55 years before they could choose a black president? I guess answer to these questions is voice bound and mind bound because any kind of discrimination is an antagonistic pattern provoked by morally repugnant minds. It’s also complicated to assess if the so called oppression or segregation has really ended or is it still hidden under political covers. Initiating a ‘Birthers movement’ against President Obama is one incident that could take us back to controversial coffee sessions or round table discussions. Moreover, why do our children still have to add their native race, ‘African, Latino Irish or Asian’ before they could introduce themselves as Americans?

In my view, history of any nation is just not about its industrialization, colonization or expansion. It is also about its people, their culture, their trials and tribulations, sufferings and emancipation. That’s what I would say American history is about, which seems to have a silent partake in the Black History Month. All the more, Black heritage is a saga of transition. It’s a tale not about the end of subjugation but the beginning of independence and a monarchy of self-reliance and equality, where no race is better than human race. Such egalitarianism in our thinking can infuse real change, which actually is an impending action of discharging ourselves from the shackles of bigotry to move forward towards humanity. To conclude, I would say America today is like a rainbow, which beautifies the sky with different shades. It is a nation just not of multiple races but of vivid colors. It however has to remember forever that Black History Month is also like that color spectrum, which  signifies one prominent color that made America what it is today, a nation founded on the beatitude of love, values and aspirations of dreams of million eyes that can be achieved and realized through one heart and one mind.

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy: Photo Bucket

She is a woman : A poem by Barkha Dhar

“In this sacred heart is the home of burnt desires
a garden of fake flowers
a life glazed with pain
so immense and so drained
Every knock on this heart awaits a change
to see my world shine forever and ever again

She is voice of a mother, a wife, she is a lover and so much more
for she is a woman before her garb of roles
The truth however unfolds the fact
she is living in a world so dogmatic and whack
Change for her is so opaque, so unfair and so fake
She is independent and manifested yet is abandoned and evicted
for she is a woman forgotten and inflicted

Much has been done over the years
to stop oppression to wipe her tears
She still has a toll tearing her soul
for she is a woman so beautiful and bold
In this ravage she is searching for life
a light of her own to fight for her right

Education has given emancipation for she is so full of anticipation
She has a heart so tender to care
with a womb that has the power to bear
She still has to tackle society’s shackles
for she is a woman fighting her battles

She is a bird closed and caged, for she is a woman so full of rage
She is assaulted, set ablaze for she is a women abducted as bait
She has a palette with colors so pale
for her atrocities narrate her tale

She is singing a song take me along just take me along
to a place of love where I belong
A place where my gender is no more slender
A place where my peace is not haunted on streets
A place where life is so calm so I could live in no harm

She is a mother, she is a wife,for she is a woman
singing the song of her life
She has a heart that waits for change
to see her world shine forever and ever again”.
- By Barkha Dhar
Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtsey: Dryicons.com

Taking Women's Rights Seriously

Women’s right seems like a gigantic struggle that most women face in developed, developing and under-developed nations. The issue is a walk on a tight rope, may not be as much for developed nations. However for developing and under-developed world it is a mammoth crisis. Poverty, lack of awareness and resources, social segregation and gender discrimination are some prominent parasites of change. Besides this education ranges from none to bleak. The hope for a brighter tomorrow comes with taking up such issues seriously at local and government level. The point that each man has to stand for his woman seems good but what are the chances of such change? An alternative however could be that each educated and empowered woman stands to change every other woman who feels under powered, powerless or even suppressed. In my view, any nation can succeed locally and compete globally if the ratio of contribution in the value chain ranges from men to women and women to women. Only a fraction of empowered women wouldn’t deliver much towards a nation’s competitiveness on the global map. So the principle of unity in diversity is yet again applicable, this time however with the aspect of unified composition of men and women on a diverse global scene.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Women for Women

Women’s equality and empowerment has little to do with mythology in my view. For God, all creatures are equal and one. The past, as is the present in some regions of the globe, has witnessed women handing over the reins to men folk. We women have since centuries been living for our husbands, children and families, numbering our own selves at last. We have been enhancing ourselves physically or sexually to please our mates. Our grandma’s stories were full of God and his exquisite creation- the women. However are women folk still waiting for a divine intervention in order to respond to sexual discrimination, emotional abandonment or even conservatism?. God may have been a little bias in terms of physical power distribution to men. He however balanced the act by creating an emotional powerhouse the women. Bravo God! We women have to realize that role equalities emanate through a balance of physical, mental and emotional interplay. Jesus or Allah doesn’t ride their golden chariots and stop by corporate or homes or schools or universities or even shopping malls to stop power discrimination. A woman has to be the savior of women and of all others like her in the community or tribe or social group. It is indeed afflicting to see how a mother sometimes enforces prostitution on her own daughter or in most cases how a mother in law in connivance with her son and husband sets the daughter in law a blaze. Mothers, daughters and sisters have to fight back and fight it out but not fight amongst. We have to unite to cease the suppression. Modernism may only educate and aware but a spiritual and emotional arousal has to come within. If God could help, he rather wouldn’t until we helped ourselves. He can only share his might by his grace and his shine through inner power. The rest is on us to accumulate, assimilate and actuate.

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
photo courtesy: listeningfromwithin.com

Women really or rarely empowered?

Envisioning dreams in a conservative society sure needs guts. The 21st century however has experienced change in its societal domain. Gender studies, women empowerment and achieving a racial equilibrium have for long looked good in the dictionary, law journals and the university curriculum. These issues have also been voiced and opinionated for years. Amidst all the loud voices, feature presentations, social and international agendas, there are questions that still remain unanswered. In spite of the changing face of urban women, rural regions and conservatism is still a parasite. It is a shallow and pedantic hole that is each day digging the grave for the idea of change. If we are living in a technologically advance and modern society where women are now considered equal to men and where independence meets interdependence, then why do women still feel emotionally abandoned? Moreover, why do still dreams shatter? why isn’t the right to expression fundamental and most importantly why isn’t freedom still free of cost?

Writing about social issues is certainly not my profession but a predisposition. As a little girl, I was taught that womanhood is a gift of god as we have an innate nature to nurture, the perseverance to serve and the power to deliver. I have faint memories of my childhood where women were compared to Goddess Shakti or Durga (The giver of power in Hindu Mythology). I wonder if mythology has anything to do with our social and emotional cravings or is it just a superficial answer to the soul. I wish mythology could mitigate our pain, then we women wouldn’t still suffocate in a split society trying to keep up with religious pressures, and minority faiths or even bear male chauvinism. Wide angle’s documentary on Angelina Duah Fares on PBS perhaps is the root to my burgeoning questions. The story of this young aspiring woman narrates the tales of refined atrocities on women even in this 21st century world.

Further to the above, hailing from a country where women have longed for social and economic independence, I truly empathize with Duah Fares. In times where the world is defined as a single global entity, it is pathetic and emotionally averse to see the plight of women in some regions of the world. Like Angelina Duah Fares there are several other unknown names or faces across the world who still are victims of constant suppression and resentment. It is just that some stories are told while, as others remain half written. This subject of equality and empowerment is indeed debatable. It is important to analyze if the women of 21st century are really empowered or rarely empowered? Well for starters, there are numerous examples of great women achievers whose talents have been realized and recognized. This facet is like a sunshine with women of substance like Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Hallee Berry, or even the most recent achievers like supreme court justice Soniya Sotomayor and Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia, a pioneer in artificial liver invention. These women have truly exemplified thought provoking change and the need to mentor young minds. Needless to say, from scratch to sassy, these women have soared high in a so-called man’s world. This however seems like a mirage when young girls like Duah fares are forced to cease their aspirations. This means that there still exists a huge nascent gap, which needs to be filled with moral dignity and humanity.

Moreover, If all women are born equal and are capable to compete, then why does physical abuse and sexual harassment still exists? Cases such as Duah Fares may give in or give away to religious verdicts, for now but not for long. It certainly seems like a stop –gap and not a full stop. To conclude, as President Obama said in his inaugural speech, “we need to get up and dust ourselves”. In my view, however, this dust needs to transcend economics and politics and touch social issues of liberty and humanity at large. We all need to dust our minds first if we really are committed to enforcing such change in its total domain including the hue and cry of the women force.

Copyright (c) 2009-Till Date Dharbarkha.blogspot
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