Celebrating International Women’s Day 2021
“Happy International Women’s Day” is the kind of messages I got today; but I’m going to do more than wishing everyone a Happy International Women’s Day. And let me explain how you can too. While we all are busy in your day to day life, you must be wondering how can we do something? We think it’s the authorities that should make a change, the C-level executives should have better policies, etc, etc. While it is right to expect better policies, we underestimate how we can bring change around ourselves; after all, change begins at home and it need not be big. But it needs to be something, a step towards a change.
This International Women’s Day theme is #ChooseToChallenge and I choose to challenge #patriarchy. It’s until now I realized how deeply ingrained patriarchy is in the society. While I can’t change the world, I will start by explaining families around me —
- What patriarchy means and how implicit it is in the society
- Why loving is simply not enough and why you need to treat your wife/mother with equal respect and give equal opportunities in the simplest of things
- Why you need to respect her even if she is a housewife ( working relentlessly for free without any holidays )
- Why you need to involve your wife/mother in every major decision of the house and not take it by yourself just because you are the earning member of the family.
Our mothers have suffered silently since ages but it’s high time we millennials take matters in our own hands and start educating our fathers, brothers and uncles to break the cycle. Rome was not built in a day and hence I want to empower you all to start building it so it does finish ONE day and not SOME day. I want you all to think and take action on what change can you bring around yourself to support gender equality. Remember, it need not be a big change but it needs to be something. What more will you do than wishing and forwarding Happy International Women’s day messages?
