2016 Sep 11
by Ridmi Upeksha
Gender equality in many societies is mostly a politically and legally accepted norm, a norm that hasn’t reached the true social acceptance. When you look at women as a whole as a separate social group in the society, unlike in first world countries in second and third world countries it is considered to be a group that’s one level below men. Do we question why? Do we know the answer to it and decide to be silent about it?
Women in most countries are the house workers and care-takers of families and expected to live up to the socially accepted standards, under the control of their husbands. Gender equality in our society when it comes to domestic and professional scenarios is the same story as it was a decade ago. It could have opted slightly more in urbanized and industrialized areas of the country, yet there is always a few scattered bias opinions on how women are unlikely to fit certain job requirements or certain abilities that a male candidate or a man would possess. When you look at the professional and the business world, most organization are legally required to employee an equal ratio of men and women in their offices in order to keep up with legal requirements of the country. Leaving aside the legal aspect of the topic, in real sense have women in our country have gained their right to the equal place in the society? For the last 25 years our society has seen new and different things along with changes that were not there 25 years ago and people have accepted them, got adapted to them quite fast. People in our society are now more socially exposed and are in a place where most of our actions can be given a definition or an explanation to make it right from wrong or from wrong to right. So is there a specific definition or an explanation for the feeling of how women come in the second place in the society, gender wise?
As a growing country from third world to second world, Sri Lanka is facing a slow growth in reaching the gender equality in the society. Though Sri Lanka is a county that has a rich cultural background, it has a laid back set of expectations from a Sri Lankan girl. Culturally accepted ways of living and socially imposed believes of how to be a girl in our society has lead the whole country to a direction with compact possibilities and outcomes, a direction which has not seen a redirection of vast and better possibilities of how a woman can be in the same place as a man unlike in the western world. Behaving like a culturally accepted girl is the main focus in our society rather than the respect that’s been told to be given to woman, the respect most of our men forget to give when they see a strong woman stepping up wanting to be who she wants to be. The norm is surrounded with what’s expected of a woman rather than what should be given and offered to all women, making our whole society tilted towards negativity and inequity when it comes to gender equality.
Unfortunately women are still cornered, deprived of right for education, right for equality in our society. Is this something that we cannot change in our society? Are we simply giving up to see the right place for women in our society? Some women come bit further ahead on this road, but later on get into young marriage situations and get stuck with the whole burden of being the care-taker for a whole family. Can this be considered as an independent choice of life as an individual? When people who surrounds you tell you, trample you and order you to do things you don’t want to do you are not left with much of a choice but to do it, especially when you are a woman in a society like this. Not all women are strong to stand up for their rights like some women do. But if you give them the right place in the society to be whom they want to be, won’t all women get their chance to be themselves without a fight?
A woman has to be recognized for who she is as a person and a human, not to be labelled with the gender she’s born with. We are all human, and it’s the society’s responsibility to give women the right and the equal place they deserve in it. We are all born with similar abilities but some of us are born with exceptional abilities to change the world. Some of these exceptional ideals could women who are be hiding in our society with less options to show the world for who they are. Give women the opportunity to grow, empower and find themselves in the right place they want to be in. Pride, power, masculinity over women are traits that you should give up, because women are the equal of you. We are all equals in this society, and that is the way to think for a better future!
