Recently I read a lot of articles on ‘Women Empowerment’ and ‘Independence of Women’ and almost all articles suggested that today’s women should not depend on anyone, not even their better half for anything. They suggested that women have this inherent habit of being over-dependent on their parents, hubby and in-laws and they need to overcome it soon. Since time immemorial, married women have been accustomed to being dependent on their husbands for everything – for moving out, shopping, movie, eating out…anything and everything. She keeps waiting for her husband to go out for a movie, just to find him so tired in the evening that he cuddles the cushion on the couch and enjoys the cricket match. #LuckyCushion, I must say!
But now times have changed. We find women zooming the car all alone and swiping the cards at their own will. We even hear the men encouraging the women of the house and shrugging off their shoulders, at the same time and saying – “Go wherever you wish to…I never stopped you!”
All I feel like saying is – “Yes…u never stopped me and you never even cared to look back when I stopped and was left behind.” I stand by the fact that if every time I were to move out alone, go out for shopping alone, go out with my friends , then why did I marry? I did not marry just for the sake of this society. I did not marry just to keep the relatives and society’s mouth shut and prevent them from saying – ‘Shaadi karlo beta..ab tumhari umar nikal rai hai‘.. I did not marry to lead the same life of bachelorhood for a lifetime. And above all, I did not marry to adopt a grown-up child and take up all his responsibilities without expecting a penny in return.
Today women are blindly running in the rat race of being independent, self-dependent and empowered. We forget that in this race of being independent, we are actually being left alone, being more and more burdened and lonely, than being empowered. They are doing the shopping, groceries and all the household chores all alone. Also women empowerment doesn’t mean to be a Super Woman all the time. To be able to take care of home, elders, children, office everything single-handedly. Women empowerment doesn’t mean to carry the baggage of your life along with that of your family on your shoulders, all by yourself.
True empowerment comes by sharing. It comes by mutual understanding and trust. It comes by not depending on one another but living hand in hand so that one can fall back on the other when need be. It is important to be independent but not alone. It is important that the society understands that being independent doesn’t mean that one doesn’t need any kind of physical or emotional support. This independence day we need freedom from the prejudice against women. We need to ponder if in the quest of being an Independent Super Woman are we losing out on ourselves?