Women Empowerment - Apples & Oranges!

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Women empowerment, showcasing of women as ‘no lesser breed’ and ambassadors of #respectwomen are in limelight now. All this hullabaloo over trying to prove to the world that women are on par with their male counterparts forced me and my band of girls to get into an hour long debate. We were meeting after years; some of us were married, some chose to get out of it and the some were busy mastering the art of single parenting. We were all in what may seem like an ‘anti-male’ spot in our lives; but none of us hated men. We've all had our good and bad times with them. I still have a few male friends who vibe with me like my own spirit. In an attempt to showcase a woman’s caliber to grow and equate her output with that of a man’s (in scales relevant to him- ability to reproduce and bring up a child are not included in this equation!), we are only reconfirming our inferiority. The tales of a man qualifying as a pilot or he traveling to the moon are less dramatic than that of a woman doing the same. Women are validating the belief that they are the weaker sex that needs an external system to tell what she is capable of. It is announcing to the world “look, I am not built for this accomplishment; nature created me to be incapable of achievement of this degree. But I fought the odds and made it to the top”. With this, we are only accepting inferiority.




 Men and women are created (manufactured) differently. Let's face it. There are biological and evolutionary differences between them. In general, women fare well with emotions whereas men do a better job with physical strength. The scope, expertise and caliber of man and woman, will therefore, vary dramatically. With this act of pretending to 'scale up’ to man’s potential and ‘grow’ to his level of achievement, we, the apples, are trying to become oranges! We should learn to applaud when our male counterparts break barriers. We should readily share some part of the appreciation that is bestowed upon us unfairly, when they conquer planets and earn titles in sports. We should learn to accept our differences and the strength it brings. Let encouragement be gender neutral. Let motivation take from performance regardless of gender. If all of us aped our men in thought and deed, we will soon be left with a planet full of men!

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