Women Empowerment in India- How can We Achieve It?

Reading an interesting article on "Women Empowerment in India" a thought crossed my mind is giving special privilegesto women and formulating new laws enough to empower women and change the mindset of people towards them. Well, I completely disagree with people who nod their head in agreement. In India women have always been treated as second grade citizen and instances of violence against women has an astonishing and grim variety to it – with acid throwing, domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment. Everyday no one knows how many Nirbhayas go unnoticed, how many daughters are burnt alive for dowry and how many sisters go through the mental trauma of being sexually harassed. It is sad to know that the number of such incidents is quite alarming and just formulating laws and bestowing rights so far have not beensuccessful in putting a full stop toall the nuisance.

One of my good friend and an active member of an NGO in Mumbai clearly stated that "Women Empowerment in India is only possible if we actually understand the root cause of the problem.Even in mythology the goddess Sita had to give agnipariksha to prove her innocence.This example is enough to prove that if we really want to empower women, we really need to work hard towards changing the mindset of people inthe societythat we are living in". Here again we come to same point from where we started- how to change the mindset of people in this male dominated society?

Inorder to find the solution to this question that has been troubling me for past few weeks, I decided to talk about this topic with my class and understand how much the future generation understands this issue. I divided the class into two groups and asked each groupto explain what they understand withthe term women empowerment. "To let the women be decisionmaker and be free to choose for themselves." was the reply. Then I put forward my second question and how are we going to bring about this change. The answer was unanimous "by educating the women about their rights under the law and to empower them to demand these rights. At the same time we need to educate and work with men and boys to address gender inequality within communities."

In today’s era apart from educating women about their rights, laws and privileges, it is equally important to work hard to close the wide gap of gender inequality in India. The men and boys stillhave insensitive attitudes toward women and see women as objects of sex. So, there is an urgent need to change these attitudes and to really work with men and boys to build a gender-friendly India. To start with we all need to understand andaccept that girls are equals to boys. We should treat a girl child at par to boy child. It is a well-known fact that education starts at home,we need to teach our boysat a very early age to treat women with respect and love. Also, there are several NGOs that work continuously towards the women empowerment in India. Throughmultimedia campaigns, leadership training and building partnerships with communities, NGOs empower both men and women to take bold action for the dignity, equality and justice of all. They work day and night tobring about awareness among general masses related to hot and burning issues such as domestic violence, gender inequality, dowry, early marriage and sexual harassment. Want to change the world around you? Get associated with an NGO today.

I am a Social journalist, researcher and writer. I have spent most of time in my journalism and reading stories from internet and other sources. love t share my information and knowledge through on line publication