WOMEN'S DAY

       The World Wide Web is abuzz with International Women’s Day wishes today.  Text Messages, Telephone calls and Personal greetings keep pouring in from friends and colleagues who are determined to remind us it’s Our Special Day.  
       Many companies and organizations make elaborate arrangements every year on Women’s Day.  The celebrations actually run into days prior to the D-Day with competitions galore-never mind that the events could be as silly as musical chairs, memory games etc., which are not even played by the high school crowd these days.  The idea probably is that the Poor women, who are hounded at home and workplace need to let down their tresses and de-stress.  Some events are also held for both the sexes, especially to appease the men, who, more often than not, happen to be the bosses too.   Women celebrities, news-makers, movers and shakers are in great demand this day to make not-too-long speeches that are sufficiently serious, extolling the achievements of women in all fields and berating the role of men in their lives, if necessary.  After some free snacks and a lot of new-found bonhomie with the gathered women, everyone feels suitably privileged. Maybe the husband or the boyfriend takes them out to a candle-lit dinner in the evening, buys them a suitably valuable gift and the day ends on a dreamy note.  But then, dawn does not really bring a new day-it’s back to the drudgery of home and workplace. Do these celebrations make any tangible change for the better in women’s lives?

            The average woman is a glorified servant in her home.  It is seen the world over that the unpaid services of women are considerably greater than that of men.  A working woman is no different from a juggler, expected to keep so many balls in the air at the same time, with no appreciation for the tricky manoeuvres, but immediate criticism for the slightest mishap.  She is, no doubt, the Mother-of-all-Multi-taskers.  The contribution of men towards running the house-hold in most cases is limited to lifting the telly remote.  Even if the woman earns more than the man or her job comes with more responsibilities or is more demanding, it is the woman who is expected to do the cooking, cleaning, supervising the domestic help, tending to children’s and elders’ needs.  The man would happily be parked on his haunches, not lifting his little finger to ease his woman’s burden.  If a woman is to succeed in her chosen field, she has to develop a considerably thick skin towards her detractors, turn selectively deaf to her colleagues’ barbs, be blind to her family’s short-comings and selfishness, manage to keep her other half always happy, her children and the elders in the family well-fed and healthy, learn the fine art of humoring the domestic help-in short, forget about her own self totally and live her life for others.

Every woman is indeed a miracle for what she accomplishes in her day-to-day life in spite of all odds.  This brings to mind the poem ‘Accomplishments’ by Elizabeth Ralph Mertz. 

When Aristotle wrote his books,

When Milton searched for rhyme,

Did they have toddlers at the knee

Requesting dinner time?

When Dante contemplated ‘hell’

Or Shakespeare penned a sonnet,

Did Junior interrupt to say

His cake had ketchup on it?

When Socrates was teaching youth

And Plato wrote the Phaedo,

Were they the ones to clean the mess,

The Children made with Play-doh?

If Edmund Burke had had to work

On all kids’ ablutions,

Would he have the time and strength,

To speak on revolutions?

Did food get bought when Darwin

Sought the origin of species?

Or, did he have to hush the tots,

And tell them not to tease, please?

When Judges Holmes and Brandies donned their robes

And gave their wise opinions,

Was laundry piled a meter high

With socks mixed up with linens?

How much greater, then, the task

Of those who manage both,

Who juggle scholarship with child

Development and growth,

And how much greater is the praise

For those who persevere

And finish their advanced degrees

And take up a career!

This poem remains relevant even today, some thirty odd years after its writing.  This is indeed proof that not much has changed in women’s lives in the last few decades.  One only hopes that the next few decades at least would see some changes for the better in terms of male participation in the home sphere and ease the lives of women.