Respecting women each day of the year
International Women’s Day came and went more than a month ago on March 8. It left one wondering as a couple of decades ago, we never had so many special days like Women’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Friend’s Day and not even the insanely hyped Valentine’s Day. In India, we only had Children’s Day to commemorate the birth anniversary of the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. All other days were conceived by the West under a well thought out plan and since they had been our masters till not very long ago, we blindly follow them.
That someone’s commercial interests are behind these seemingly innocuous celebrations is well understood. If it was the greeting card industry yesterday, it is the SMS and internet industry now.
Coming to the logic behind celebrating Women’s Day, it must have been due to the guilt of a misogynistic society of the so-called ‘developed world’. Their writers and philosophers provide ample proof of this. The Bard of Avon was not alone in berating women in the early 16th century by declaring ‘Frailty, thy name is woman’. He had company. Look what the others said. An 18th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, “They are the inferior sex in every respect… to pay them honour is ridiculous beyond measure and demeans us even in their eyes.”
Come 19th century, and Friedrich Nietzsche went a step further and advised, “You are visiting women? Don’t forget your whip.”
Then you had people like Martin Luther, a 16thcentury reformer, who said, “The word and work of God is quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes” and “We may well lie with what seems to be a woman of flesh and blood, and yet all the time it is only a devil in the shape of a woman.”
People such as John Calvin, a 16th century theologian, and Tertullian, known as the father of Latin Christianity, 2nd century, did their own damage to the image of women.
With so many skeletons in their cupboard, it should not surprise anybody if the guilt took the shape of a feeling of atonement for the injustice done to the fair sex, albeit so late, in the 21st century.
But do we have to copy and own someone else’s guilt as our own? Perhaps not.
Our own record was never as bad. We were the only race who declared that God was not male; instead He was ‘Ardhnarishwar’ (half male, half female). Accordingly, a woman was termed as ‘Ardhangini’ (one who is the equal half of a man) and women of Vedic period were respected and had equal rights. No ritual was considered complete without their participation. To this day, we are the only people who worship young girls as ‘Kanjaks’ and touch their feet, while fasting for 18 days in a year to appease various incarnations of mother Goddess. No doubt, of late, evils such as crime against women have crept in, mainly due to the materialistic pursuits driving away spirituality, which again is the result of blindly aping an alien culture.
Let us accord respect to women each day of the year, not forgetting even for a moment, what Guru Nanak said much before Shakespeare, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche: “So kyon manda aakhiye, jit jamme rajan (Why denigrate one who has brought kings and emperors into this world).”
WITH SO MANY SKELETONS IN THEIR CUPBOARD, IT SHOULDN’T SURPRISE ANYBODY IF THE GUILT TOOK THE SHAPE OF A FEELING OF ATONEMENT FOR THE INJUSTICE DONE TO THE FAIR SEX, ALBEIT SO LATE, IN THE 21ST CENTURY