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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 degrees, 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…
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Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuses: Resources and Guidelines on Healing
If you are a survivor of childhood sexual abuses, you are most likely fighting a silent and invisible battle throughout your life. You probably never talked about it with anybody and thought you would be successful in overcoming whatever happened to you as a child. you might have always tried to minimize the experiences of abuses by blocking all the memories associated to those experiences. Yet, as an adult, you probably are struggling in your relationships, mood, or suffer from chronic depression or anxiety. survivors of childhood sexual abuses just wish to completely wipe all the memories out of their brain. If you have been molested or abused…
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Dowry Killings: Why Does It Happen and How Can We Prevent It?
Dowry is a social custom where a man and his family demand assets and money from the bride’s family. Even though dowry is declared illegal in India and other neighboring countries, this practice is still highly prevalent in these region. To know more about this custom, it’s background and consequences, read our post Dowry- The Leading Cause of Female Infanticides and Foeticides in Indian Sub-continent What is dowry killings ? In some cases, greed of the guy’s family persists after marriage and the demand for money or expensive items does not end after marriage . In these cases, often the girls are tortured and severely abused to…
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MeToo: A Movement Truly Helped Women to Overcome Victim Shaming
“I think only when we can shift the shame from the victims to perpetrators, the change will start there.”- Dr. Denis Mukwege In October 2018, New York time published how #MeToo movement brought down 201 powerful men in the United States. Majority of these men have harassed and assaulted women for many years and probably never imagined they would ever have to face any consequences. We have seen in the last couple of years how so many men in power and fame were accused, proven guilty, removed or resigned from their position or even sentenced as a consequence of MeToo movement. Victim blaming and shaming has not completely…
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Female Genital Mutilation: Facts, Figures and Resources
What is Female Genital Mutilation? Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a harmful and brutal practice of partially or completely removing , cutting , sewing up , piercing of external female genitalia as a social or cultural custom. There are several deep- rooted cultural, social, even political and religious believes behind this inhuman practice but actually it is nothing but a reflection of discrimination and oppression against women and girls and is used to harness the rights and controls of women’s lives, sexuality , health and well being. “With the dignity, health and well-being of millions of girls at stake, there is no time to waste. Together, we can…
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Cost of Gender Inequality: Data and Reports
Keeping women away from the main workforce and quality education could have negative impacts on the growth and development of any country. A recent report by the World Economic Forum has explained the correlation between gender gap and economic development of all the countries. Women account for one-half of a country’s potential talent base, a nation’s competitiveness in the long-term depends significantly on whether and how it educates and utilizes its women. The Report highlighted the strong correlation between a country’s gender gap and its economic performance and summarizes some of the latest research on the economic and societal case for gender equality. Countries that have made investments…
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The Battle which Led to the Voting Rights of Women in Britain
“We women, in trying to make our case clear, always have to make as part of our argument, and urge upon men in our audience the fact – a very simple fact – that women are human beings.” – Emmeline Pankhurst The relentless fight for women’s voting right in the United Kingdom began around mid 19th Century. Under the 1918 Representation of the People Act ,Women won the right to vote in the UK in 1918. Representation of the People Act was a pivotal milestone , but this act granted voting rights only to women over the age of 30 who either owned land themselves or were married to…
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From A Victim of War Crimes to Nobel Peace Prize
“After what has happened to me I realize the most difficult thing is to be a woman” – Nadia Murad. Systematic Sexual violence against women has always been used as a strategy of warfare. In 2018, a Yazidi women survivor and women rights activist received the Noble Peace Prize. This 25 year old shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Dr. Denise Mukwege, who has spent more than two decades in treating the women impacted by sexual violence in Republic of Congo for their “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”. In August 2014, a group of ISIS extremists invaded…
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Child Marriage: Getting Rid of the Burden-the sooner the better
Nujood Ali fled her husband’s home at the age of 10, after being beaten regularly by her in-laws and raped by her husband for two months. She showed immense courage by going to the court and obtaining divorce by breaking the social norms and tradition. Her story was later documented by a French journalist in “I am Nujood: Age 10 and Divorced “. Nujood became a prominent figure in Yemen’s movement against forced and early marriages. Child marriage is a fundamental violation of human rights. It is prevalent in all over the world, from the Middle East to Latin America, South Asia to Europe. According to an UNICEF report,…
