Glenary’s, Darjeeling
In my last post on women’s empowerment, I focused on the suffrage movement and reverse gender bias. The United Nations theme for this years IWD was Gender Equality for a Sustainable tomorrow. In this post I will discuss about some of the most evil practices which directly hamper the natural Gender Equilibrium of this world.
Female feticides and gender selective abortions
Female feticides and gender selective
abortions top the list of these evil practices. Recently we saw a movie on Prime videos, Jayeshbhai Jordar with Ranveer Singh as the lead actor. I did not really have a lot of hope from this movie as it was not a success in the box office. But once I watched it, I was bowled over! The main subject of the movie was the evil practice of Female feticides and gender selective abortions.
Jayeshbhai Jordar movie mini review
In the garb of a comedy movie they have reflected a very ugly truth about some parts of our Indian society.
The main protagonist, Jayeshbhai, loves his wife a lot, feels strongly against the claustrophobic patriarchal environment in his house as well as in the village. But he also wants to maintain peace in the extended family front. So he goes along with many things that were against his ethos but at the same time trying to maintain his core ethos. This turned out to be a very steep uphill climb for him and the story unfurls along the lines of his fight for fairness in a very unfair world.
One scene from the movie shows a doctor speaking in code. If the ultrasound showed a boy, she would say,Jai Shri Krishna, with a wide smile. This was accompanied with the animation of a dancing,happy baby in a USG report. And if the ultrasound, showed a girl, the doctor in a very conspiratorial tone, would say Jai Mata Di. This followed by the animation of a crying baby under unltrasound,which dissolves into blood inside the womb. This brought tears to my eyes. What kind of a society allows such practices? Even though it is illegal in India, its practiced with clandestine in some parts. It was no wonder that the movie was unpalatable for the general public, as they have deviated quite a bit from the patriarchal and toxic masculinity narrative.
Missing Females, a huge gap in gender equality
They have written further that “India accounts for almost one-third (32.1 per cent) of the total 142.6 million missing females in the world and is the second highest contributor. The biggest contributor is China at 72.3 million (7.2 crore) ‘missing females’ that is 50.7 per cent of all missing females in the world.”
Read the full report here
Progress or Regress of Gender Equality?
The big question is, what is the source of such a biased mentality? Why are male children preferred to such an extent that even killing a tiny life is justified? And that too this happening in a country where Maa Durga and Maa Kali are worshipped as symbols of power!
The other end of the spectrum! The Abortion Ban in the US
Reproductive Rights
In Margaret Atwoods’s words, we still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.
It is our moral duty as women who have had access to education, who have realised the gross unfairness of the extreme gender divide, to start exerting our power. The power to spread the word, to speak out against unfairness, to protest, to write and document the evil practices.
This is not the world I wanted to raise my daughter in. She should grow up with MORE rights than I did, not less.
So true. All around the world, things are getting scarier…
Thanks for sharing this; I feel very strongly about women’s rights and it is sad that around the world so many of us are devalued. I haven’t seen this film but it sounds like it really did a good job of exploring these issues.
Thank you Molly. We really need to talk more on these topics to make the world fair and jusy