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Women
Reclaiming the Earth for All
by Deepti Priya Mehrotra
Three decades after 1975 - the UN International Year of Women - women
are still demanding equality and freedom, both goals having proved
elusive! But they are asserting something else as well, even more
passionately - the right to save humanity from destroying our world and
ourselves.
If 1975 stirred action for achieving gender balance on many fronts, the
year 2005 will go down in history as one in which women made determined
moves to bring peace on earth. In the midst of escalating international,
national and domestic violence, large sections of women are acting to
end war and brutality wherever it may exist. As partial acknowledgement,
a thousand women - all active at the grassroots - from across the globe
were collectively nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, as representative
of the thousands more who are struggling to change the world and make a
difference.
An ordinary American housewife, Cindy Sheehan, has mobilized enormous
public opinion against the genocidal, empire-building war her country is
waging in Iraq. A mother who lost her son to the war machine, she
insisted on meeting Bush to demand that such perverted sacrifice of
human lives be stopped forthwith. Closer home, women in Kashmir have
raised their voices against unremitting low-intensity warfare, women in
the Northeast continue to demand lifting of the Armed Forces (Special
Powers) Act, and thousands work strategically for peace in Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Aung Saan Suu Kyi of Myanmar continues to be the conscience-keeper of
the world, as she stands undaunted in the face of a brutal, despotic
regime.
Her fearless civil disobedience provides inspiration to millions of
people, even as the government announced she would be kept under house
arrest for yet another year.
Despite the groundswell of women's actions for peace, they still lack
power and authority when it comes to peace negotiations. Those sitting
around the peace table are almost exclusively men (and often the
war-loving kind). The same, unfortunately, is true for those holding
power as heads of State, business and international agencies. Even the
United Nations is culpable, having failed to implement the Platform of
Action it adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing,
1995), promising "overall gender equality, particularly at the
professional level and above, by the year 2000". Ten years on, women are
still grossly under-represented in the ranks, middle and higher rungs.
Elections for a new Secretary-General will take place in 2006 - and
campaigners under the rubric 'Equality Now!' are pointing out that there
is no dearth of qualified women candidates from all regions of the
world.
In India, women are better represented in local governance structures
than was the case as little as 15 years ago. The experiment in
democratic decentralization set in motion a little over 10 years ago,
with a minimum one-third percentage of seats reserved for women, is
bearing fruit. Women in Panchayati Raj (local governance bodies) are
battling corrupt forces at the grassroots to gain access to water,
livelihood and educational rights for their village constituencies. But
there is still strong opposition to women's representation at higher
levels of governance. Most political parties have successfully blocked
legislation that would ensure significant political participation by
women in Parliament and state legislatures. Nor do any parties have
gender parity within their own rank and file, or at the higher echelons.
And yet women's leadership has emerged, and won respect for its
unswerving commitment to people's movement goals. Aruna Roy has become a
national icon as she battles relentlessly for the Right to Information -
a tool people's groups across the country now use to carry out social
audits, expose corruption and get rights to food, land, schools, roads
and other developmental goals. Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao
Andolan continues to lead, with her incisive arguments questioning the
logic and ethics of displacing millions of tribal and other village
people in the name of 'development'. In November this year, thousands
gathered in the Narmada valley, protesting against the injustices of a
State that denies basic human rights to its own people. Despite being
thrown out of their homes, browbeaten and harassed, threatened and lathi-charged,
resistance to big dams has refused to die out.
Environmentalists - including Vandana Shiva, Sunita Narain and millions
of ordinary village women continue to be oracles, predicting that the
rape of the earth will lead to absolute destruction, and urging the
human race to act now to save our planet. In 2005, all hell broke loose
as Mother Nature openly reacted to the damage being heaped upon her.
Heralded by the tsunami in late-2004, 2005 experienced an unprecedented
avalanche of disasters, including hurricanes Katrina and Rita hitting
the east coast of the US, and the earthquake in Himalayan Pakistan and
India. What the Chipko women (a deforestation movement in India's
Himalayan state of Uttaranchal) spoke of in the early 1970s has not yet
been heeded - that the earth is our mother and we must protect her, if
she is to protect us.
Most women in the world are grappling with basic food, water and
survival issues. Globalization is resulting in intensified poverty,
dispossession and inequalities. Women's groups have aligned with tribal,
Dalit (oppressed
caste) and other groups to raise these issues.
Health services are being privatized at a hectic pace, and women at the
bottom of the economic rung receive incrementally less quality care.
Millions of girls are being denied effective schooling, that might help
them break out of vicious cycles of poverty, and structural and domestic
violence. Rape, child abuse and sex-selective abortion are rampant, the
figures growing year after year.
Scores of women like Flavia D'Souza, Ela Bhatt, Neelam Chaturvedi, Ruth
Manorama, Syeda Hameed, Shashi Sail, Varsha Kale and organizations like
Awaaz-e-Niswaan, Vimochana and Forum Against Oppression of Women carry
on the good fight against multiple patriarchies. Perhaps there is some
light at the end of the tunnel. The Domestic Violence Bill is a signal
victory, as is the new law enhancing women's right to property
inheritance. Today LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual) movements
are flowering in India, challenging normative gender roles, sexuality
and lifestyles.
Women are stepping out of stereotypical roles and becoming pilots,
entrepreneurs, taxi drivers and tourist guides. Extraordinary talents
like tennis player Sania Mirza, dramatist Zohra Sehgal, social activist
Viji Srinivas and writer Amrita Pritam provide endless inspiration to
the young and old.
Despite all this, the patriarchies seem fairly solid, male dominance
being re-established under different guises. 'Male-stream' media and
academia persist in promoting stereotypes, projecting men as 'experts',
while paying lip service to 'women's empowerment'. Feminist theory has
been partly co-opted, with the focus today shifting to men and
'masculinities' - forgetful of the fact that 'masculinity', 'femininity'
and 'gender' were first conceptualized by feminist women scholars
seeking to break stereotypical moulds as well as dismantle patriarchies.
Despite the many challenges to sexual and lifestyle norms,
(heterosexual) marriage continues to be our foremost national pastime.
Thousands take place all the time and babies (preferably male) continue
to be born overtime. And although women today perform all kinds of jobs,
most men still refuse to sweep the floor, or wash their baby's bottoms.
They really ought to learn to do so, releasing women to share skills
with a wider circle, helping build the power to clean and wash, heal and
nurture - at a global level.
December 25,
2005
By arrangement with
Women's Feature Service
Top
| Women
The Week of December 25, 2005
India 2006 : A Nation Stung to
Action? by Rajinder Puri
Pakistan's Monochromatic Foreign
Policy by Dr. Subhash Kapila
NY Transit Workers' Demands &
Pensions of the Powerful by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Keep Back Pain at Bay by Dr.
Savitha Suri
Legacy of the city of pearls -
Hyderabad by Neha Girotra
Quiet Laughter from within The
Child's Soul by Dhiraj Bhimji Raniga
Double Game by Vikram Karve
Live Life Kingsize : A Play by
Kartik Krishnan
Here's Looking at You, Brother
by Aparna Sharma
Many Shades of Red by Mehru
Jaffer
Rajni Kumar : A Class Apart - A
Profile
Reclaiming the Earth for All by
Deepti Priya Mehrotra
From Frying Pan to Fire by
Nitin Jugran Bahuguna
No Safe Place in Kerala by
Sreedevi Jacob
The Colors of Evil A Review
by G. Swaminathan
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