DO WE NEED A WOMAN’S DAY?

BISWADEEP GHOSH

Hello, weak and powerless women, it is time to declare from the rooftops what you don’t have but deserve. That sounds so utterly, gutterly stupid. But, who listens, who bothers, who cares? As the world comes together to celebrate womanhood today, what we choose to ignore is that, in modern times, most urban women do get what they want. They have good jobs, social standing, equality with men in the domestic sphere and so on. So, is there a genuine need for a Woman’s Day in urban societies that supposedly reminds women of their power, their privileges, their status in the society? When we celebrate the day, don’t we, in certain unstated ways, affirm that the society is divided into two classes: that of the Fair Sex and the Unfair Sex?

Someone who wishes to view the situation in a lighter vein may exclaim: ‘Men of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your gender.’ But seriously, what the celebrations suggest isn’t funny. For one, we choose to honour genuine women achievers not because of what they have achieved but since they ‘are’ women who have ‘managed’ to script success stories. What we forget is that such success stories have been, and will be, there. There is no need to under-rate them with the eulogies in a limiting day-and-gender-specific context.

The implication, however, is not that women’s rights don’t need to be articulated. In uncivil societies where a woman’s birthrights are denial and oppression, voices need to be raised against man’s sexist dictatorship both within the house and outside. Without indulging in armchair theorising to discuss the Susani Faludis of the world, it is important to check out the state of affairs and contribute in one’s small way. Strangely enough, this is where most surrender without a fight.

Such individuals are convinced that if one attempts to change the society, the society changes him/her. But they go on and on about Woman’s Day on Woman’s Day as if there is nothing more important, nothing more meaningful. Their approach is so utterly credible since few twitch their eyebrows in discomfort because of two obvious reasons. For many men who believe that the society must not change, the day epitomizes all the dubious connotations of the tired cliché ‘man’s world’. For others, and that includes women too, the day is all about taking the shortest escape route to make a pompous statement of gender equality. A few are genuine. But then, they would always be that way, with or without a Woman’s Day.

Woman’s Day ought to disappear from our list of annual celebrations. In fact, it must. However, the desire is nothing more than demential optimism, guided as we all are by Mesozoic social norms. The celebration of ‘triumphs against adversities’ – whether or not they exist in all those cases – does nothing beyond reminding of the power of the man. But, who gives a damn anyway?