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In Search of a Safer Place for Women
Last June, soon after coming to the United States, I joined a non-profit Organization, Rape Trauma Services, for a training to help and support the survivors of sexual assaults. This training and the subsequent experience of working as a sexual assault advocate and counselor changed my whole perspective of the status of women in western societies.
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Domestic Violence Against Women Across The World-Where Are We?
Do you know that wife-beating was legal and a very common practice in almost all countries prior to the mid-1800s? Most legal systems viewed wife-beating as a valid exercise of a husband’s authority over his wife? Women and children were seen as ‘belonging’ to a man, therefore controlling of his wife and children in the form of physical violence or punishment by a man were acceptable in religious and civil laws of all societies. Legal Documents from the Medieval Age from different regions support wife-beating was legally allowed to ‘control, correct, support and instruct’ the wife by her husband. During the 1800s, wife beating was extremely…
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Menstruation Exile in Nepal: Another Horrific Social Evil Revisited
In January 2019, a woman in Nepal died in the ‘menstruation hut’ with her 2 kids. They died of possible suffocation or carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire they lit to warm the hut in the freezing cold! Women in Nepal are forced to live in animal sheds or secluded huts in inhuman conditions, during menstruation. Chhaupadi or menstruation exile is a century old practice in Nepal, where women are banned from entering their own house, meeting any people, eating good or nutritious food and participating any social and religious events. This was not the first death of a woman in her menstruation exile in Nepal; there…
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Breaking the Tradition of Enduring Pain
It is strange to see how we face testing time in life due to gender bias. It is there right in front of us, right from our workplace to our personal space. The major influencing factor being hundred percent tolerance – a quality the women have always been admired for. I have seen the previous generation of women, who followed all the traditions and rituals, trying to please others. They did gain a peaceful life but at the cost of their own dreams. So what is the punch line for our generation? Women have to be 100% tolerant and always have to be at the receiving end. They…
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How to Get a Job When You Have Never Worked Before
Many women, despite having a good education and advanced degree, are not economically independent. Women, in many societies never get a chance to have a career for various reasons. Some families do not allow a daughter or a daughter-in-law to go out and work. Sometimes, women themselves do not take their professional life and the value of economic independence seriously when they are younger and agree to get married and stay at home until they realize the importance of being self-independent. There are of course women who take a career break for raising their kids or to stay at home when the kids are younger. Sometimes, getting back to…