Trapped...Are We?

I happened to come across this article today -

'According to the National Commission for Women every 26 minutes a woman is molested. Every 54 minutes a rape takes place. Every 48 minutes an eve-teasing incident occurs. Every 4 minutes a woman is kidnapped. One act of cruelty every 33 minutes and one criminal offence every 7 minutes against women take place in our country...'

In our day to day lives, every day, in every situation - in public transport, markets, restaurants, women face various degrees of harassment - from whistles, cheap songs and rude remarks... to touching,feeling and pinching. When these go unchecked and unpunished the result is often molestation, rape and violence.

According to the widely held belief in Christianity & Islam , God created the world to punish Adam and Eve for tasting the forbidden apple after being tempted by Satan(serpent) to taste the apple . It was the fall of Adam and Eve that distanced humanity from its Creator. Because Eve had also tempted Adam to eat of the fatal fruit, some early preachers of Christianity held her and all subsequent women to be the first sinners and especially responsible for the Fall and the death of Jesus Christ too.There is a slight difference here in what is widely believed and written in the Quran and what is written in the Bible...but for now I won't dwell on this further.

According to Hinduism too, a woman has to suffer in uncountable ways from conception to death.Things like Child marriage,dowry & bride burning, Widow burning(sati),female infanticide,no property,mass wife burning(Jauhar) have been there since centuries .Unfortunately it still continues in smaller parts of the country and worst of all is believed to be right in the eyes of God as practices such as widow burning(sati) is santioned by the Vedas too.

The question that arises in my mind very frequently nowdays is where do I stand amidst all this chaos and wrong doings?It is as if the world has been divided into slices and you don't know which slice would be the best for you to live in, to change , to wipe out the evils ?

A country like India where woman constitute half of the population and yet the same women are forced to be at the receiving end of all this harassment ,discrimination that they are compelled to carry safety pins,rulers ,needles , swiss knives as weapons to protect themselves , a country where you cannot wear what you want to ,a country where you cannot step out in late evenings without a male escort , a country where public transport during late evening hours is equivalent to inviting trouble and harassment to yourselves.

Now when all this still continues...then why not have reservations for women? Why not give them an incentive to grow ,to show the world that they are equal to men , that they too can achieve and that they too can fight a man if ever such a need arises?Equality to me means this .It does not mean to be courteous to a woman , to have seats reserved in buses , trains -something which women tend to take advantage of ....these things cannot be taught to a 20+ year old man...these niceties must come from within once you believe in it...what good is it to have a man get up for a woman in a bus and curse the same woman in his mind or curse the system and those people who thought of such a thing to exist in public transports? (Perhaps the onus of this lies on your parents and the environment that you grew up in )

I have heard many talk of equality among men and women and no reservations for women but then what about all those women who are already bruised and battered ?What about those young girls who are locked away by their parents in the fear of saving their honour,their pride in the society ?What about those dreams and aspirations that these young girls defeated by their own society carry?

The womenfolk also must come forward and get out of this ' We are the weaker lot' syndrome and think of themselves to be equal to a man and then expect the opposite sex to change their mindsets too.
Not much is left out there if you yourself tend to believe that you are weak .

Of course as most of the times... this post too is more about observations rather than inferences, more about asking questions than seeking answers as I don't find myself in a position to arrive at a dispassionate conclusion.

All I stand by is that how good/bad or strong/weak or how successful you are should not be tested on the basis of your gender.So in many ways being a girl myself ...this is a harbinger of change for me.