Reflections on women empowerment

Md Rezwan Hossain Ratul:

The world is a dynamic place. Everything is changing rapidly and we all want to keep up with the changes. Such changes include, but not limited to, technology, profession, culture, etc. However, despite all these dynamic changes, one aspect is still lagging behind significantly and that is women empowerment. We have seen many cases by now that a woman is capable of doing things that only men are expected to do. However, the idea of equivalence is still far from being utilized and so this article will present about one perception towards how we can empower women.

First of all, the argument of woman equal to man needs to be properly understood and accepted. The term is often misunderstood by stating that woman cannot be like man. In reality, the term was introduced to give woman equal rights and equal treatment which means in any case, men will not be given preferential treatment and that everyone should be treated equally based on their merits. However, such is not possible if the meaning is not properly conveyed to people and due to cultural differences among nations, women empowerment is still far-fetched. If we look at two nations, considering Bangladesh and United States, we will immediately see that women enjoy more rights in the United States than in Bangladesh and that they are treated equally based on their merits. An easy example to portray the difference is the example of bus driver. In Bangladesh, we see bus drivers as the lower class males who are pretty much addicted to drugs and what not. However, in the United States, each bus driver has their earned license, etiquette, and more importantly, more female drivers are driving the buses than males.

Secondly, cultural differences also shape the personality of individuals among the nations. In Bangladesh, a man usually considers himself to be the leader or superior in a family or group simply based on his gender and not by his qualities. It is due to such mentality of people, women in similar countries face many barriers to progress in their own life in terms of personal goals as well as career goals. The barriers start right from the family itself and continues to external parties involved. The issue is so serious that many women were even raped and killed in the western world when they earned their way up professionally. The idea of women going ahead of men based on her merits is simply not accepted by certain people and when such situations occur, the men snaps and does something out of anger and frustration that leads to the women’s demise. If such issues continue, can we as humans expect women to come forward and stand shoulder to shoulder with me?. And why should they, if we treat them as an object and not humans?

Finally, the cultural differences can also be seen in terms of marriage. Marrying someone means settling down with everything. If we are giving a man the chance to become established professionally before getting married, then why are we not doing the same for a woman. Instead of that, we are forcing woman to marry someone twice their age, established, and rich, without thinking about the woman’s own future that she thoroughly deserves to live by herself the way she sees fit. In contrast to the Asian culture, the western culture does not possess such issues as they treat everyone equal after 18 years of age and the voice of reason is given preference. No family in the United States can force their daughter to get married to anyone at any time because they do not have the right to interfere a woman’s personal life, even if it their daughter. And so we see woman in top positions in the companies in the western world and more self-confidence because these women worked hard to put themselves in a respectable position unlike the rest of the world, where a woman is forced to marry an aged person thinking that its best for her whereas it is simply the worst. At times, they are not allowed to complete their education or work professionally after completion of their degree because people considers that she is destined to be a housewife.

Thus, as long as such mentality exists, women empowerment is a difficult move but it is evolving and their will come a time when people will not see or treat women as an object but as humans who deserves the same rights, same preferences, and same protection. If we can’t protect women, how are we planning to live on without them and carry on our legacies. And it is not just about protecting the woman of our life but women as a whole. They all deserve to live the way they see fit as do we as men. Women empowerment is a motion that should only be enforced by women, but by everyone, because in reality we all need each other to live and survive and so we should treat all equal.