Women Empowerment

Had a very relaxing weekend saw three movies Hurt Locker, The Blind Side and An Education. All three movies were very women centric movies, Hurt locker is based on the Iraq war directed by a lady, as we all know she has created history by being the first women to win the Oscar for direction. Ironically the Oscars were held on 7th March, and 8th is the International Women’s Day. On the same day the UPA government (Sonia Gandhi) had decided to get the Women reservation in parliament bill to be passed in the Upper House and present to the women of India an everlasting empowerment. Unfortunately the bill could not be passed on the same day the bill was passed the next day. The economic times headlines when the bill was passed read “A small step for man a leap for Women of India”. It felt good that now the women occupancy will increase three folds in Parliament of India from appx 54 to 180 odd. At the same time a question lingered my mind do the women of this country really need this reservation, is it the right way to empower them?

Coming back to my relaxing weekend and three movies, I would like to pick up two movie i.e An Education and The Blind side and just write how the women made a difference, by the way both actress of the movies respectively were nominated for the best actress at 82nd Oscars. Carey Mulligan (Jenny) was nominated for ‘An education’ whereas Sandra Bullock (Leigh) for ‘The Blind side’. Later on the big evening Sandra grabbed the award. Now back to the movies and specially the ladies, Jenny in An education is a sixteen year old who does not really know what she wants what she wants to do, her parents want her to go to Oxford and that becomes her aim. She is 16 years old who likes French, plays, outings and things her age should like, but can never do them as she is preparing for the Oxford. Now comes in picture David who is 30 odd years old, he takes her around shows her places, takes her to Paris, where she gives into him her virginity (that was the plan of Paris), David starts liking Jenny proposes her for marriage. Jenny and her parents readily accept it as David is rich who will be able to give her all the comfort her parents had desired for her. Towards the end Jenny comes to know David is already married and calls off her marriage with him, in the mean time she has been chucked out of school and has nowhere to go. She prepares well and gets into Oxford as she had dreamt of getting there. The movie is set in the 1960’s in London, Jenny’s parents in the first place wanted her to go to Oxford so that she can be self sustainable and do well for herself in other words be empowered they changed their mind when David proposes marriage as they think he will be able to empower her with his money. My point here is that a women’s empowerment is completely up to women themselves. Men like David are only there to empower women to even be determined to achieve their goals.

Sandra Bullock in the Blind side is a lady in her forties with a happy go lucky family. She plays a role of a foster parent to a huge black guy called Mike (Big Mike) who later goes on to become a big NFL star (Michael Oher). Ms Bullock in the movie is a sensible lady; she could only do this by the support of her family and specially her husband. Without her husband’s support she would not have been able to become a legal parent of Mike.

Men and women complement each other in empowerment, instead of really going in for the Women reservation in Parliament, the government should go deep down into the problems of the women, infanticide, child marriage, domestic violence, rape are some of the problems faced by them, the list can go on. The reservation will be merely used as a political weapon for the politicians to place their wives and daughters in the parliament; the bill will not empower women but politicians. In my view the women of the country do not need such reservation, what they need is education to empower them, by passing such reservations we are only creating a greater divide between men and women.