Fair Deal for the Fair Sex!

I was going through a brief history of International Women's Day (IWD)

"IWD was marked for the first time on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job."

It comes to me as a shame that almost after a century, as we observe this day, we have radically different demands. We demand the right to live. Is this why we call India the land of diversity because the land of Indra Nooyi is also the land of more than one million annual gendercides? Or is it because the land of Sania Mirza is also the land of more than 6000 annual dowry deaths?

Alright, we are all educated and aware citizens so I will not try to compile a bunch of facts that we all are already aware of. But, if ignorance is a bliss, awareness is surely an anguish. Anguish it is indeed, for educated people like us contribute a good deal to these frighteningly high numbers (not that the sparse occurrences of such acts would make them any less hideous).

Going back to history of IWD, as days passed by and as Archies and Hallmark spotted a business case :) , IWD also shaped itself into a day to Celebrate the Women in our lives. Today, as we celebrate the day lets also pledge that the fair sex gets the fair deal!.

So here is to the women in our lives. May we be worthy of them.

Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are — chaff and grain together — certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. -George Eliot