Trisha Parashar

I had read it somewhere that the word woman was coined as a superior term to the word man, as woman means a man with a womb. Surprisingly, the world around me , my routine surrounding silently screams that woman is a collaboration of two words , woe and man. In a world that’s characterized as progressive in today’s times and a world that ‘talks’ about everything related to empowerment, strengthening, of man & woman through education, work, and several other means; my question is do people see before they talk ? What’s the purpose of conversation we have around ? Do we really identify the problems ? Or we just give solutions, reject the fact that there’s a problem, or try and justify their existence ? There must be a greater purpose.

The existence of a single “greater purpose” and being absolutely clueless about it is how most Indian women have justified their sufferings. They accept their miseries by convincing themselves somehow that there must be a “greater purpose” . The cost of our women convincing themselves, justifying the wrongs against them is heavy. The fear instilled in us as a society; disguised as care & love is the cost that we are collectively paying. Abstinence from feeling true emotions is our punishment. It’s not rare to find adolescents complaining about the curfew that their parents lay, it’s not rare to find guardians telling their daughters, sisters and nieces that, ‘ it’s a big bad world’ and it is often that I see through such insecurities in Mother’s & Father’s veiled by concern. I do not say they are wrong in doing so; because they are not. I say that it’s disappointing that that’s the only option we are left with . The changes that I expect are generational, but in the meantime I just want that may we mean what we say and say only that which we mean, in doing so we might perhaps discover the greater purpose, which I believe is Clarity of the situation around us.

Because the lack of clarity of status is the root of the woes. The expectations imposed on women when they are viewed parallel to Goddess , and the atrocities on women when they are understood less than a human – the two extremes are the woe of being a woman!