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Confounded I: Empowerment

**I tried to put it all in one post... but it didn fit in well, so here's the first installment. you might wonder what i am trying to get at by the end.. but please wait til the next one...**


If we look back in time, to the days of Rajas and Maharajas, we’ll find many women that stand strong. Then may it be Rani Lakshmibai or Jijabai… not only were they well educated and adept to stand amongst strong men (strong here implying by valour and stature) but they were also very independent women, who took decisions that shaped not only the destinies of their families but history as we know it.

Somewhere along time the trend reversed, women took a backstep, and their role in society was diminished to merely home-makers (I am not undermining the task of home-makers here, it is indeed a huge task). Men earned the bread, women served it.

It is said education empowers you. In the pre-independence era many prejudices plagued the society, one of them was the social inequality faced by women. It is no wonder that pioneers like Dhondo Keshav Karve and Mahatma Phule looked up to education to change the state affairs. Beginning early on with widow remarriages, they moved towards bringing women out of their homes, to light, to awareness, to education. The idea was to give them a voice, or rather to make it stronger, to transform them from dependents to “independents”.  
This movement took several years to bear fruit, initially the women were apprehensive themselves, they had to first open their minds to new ideas, to the possibilities of a better life, and then they had to “convince” those that withheld them, to argue, struggle, to fight for their right… right to education.

As a result of this movement… post-independence we saw women in schools... primary education was the first step. Though the drop-out rate was high…gradually the numbers increased and sustained. Today Graduate women are a common sight.

What does education mean?  The ability to read and write is literacy… it’s a means towards education. When we say education empowers you… what does it do? I’d say education gives you the power to believe in your dreams and make them true, to believe in yourself and rise up to your true potential. And with power comes freedom. The freedom to express, to build, to create… Education gives you eyes to see yourself for what you are, neither an inferior, nor a superior…but an equal.

I grew up to these ideas of education, freedom and equality and in different magnitudes every educated woman does. 
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Comments

Radhika said…
next installment fast!!
January 23, 2012 at 7:30 PM
nishi said…
its already up :)
January 23, 2012 at 7:40 PM
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