Yesterday I explained how religion creates an attitude towards women which encourages sexual crimes. In India, religion has had a big influence on people’s daily lives and has had a big impact on the culture that we are living in today – and in which our children are growing up. I believe people are raising their sons in a way that does not make them respect girls or women and they raise their daughters in a way that makes them an easy target for sexual crimes. Let me describe how.
Obviously, yesterday’s main point is still valid today, for religion and culture to the same degree: women are considered as weak and lower persons. Religion tells this through scriptures but in culture it is the practical way of treating girls that is different from how you treat boys. This difference in itself is a big problem! It starts with the fact that girls are not as wanted as boys from the beginning but it continues when parents raise their girls. You get congratulations when you gave birth to a boy while you get looks and words of pity when it is a girl.
Raising a girl seems much more difficult for many parents than raising a boy. After all, you don’t need to teach a boy a lot. He can wear anything, he can come and go whenever and wherever he wants. For a girl however, there are thousands of restrictions: what she should wear, where she can go, when she can go, whom she can meet and whom she can talk to. She cannot decide any of this on her own! Parents, of course worrying about the crimes that are happening everywhere, restrict her, teach her, advise her and order her all these things. What they don’t realize is that they encourage the problems that they are worrying about by making such a difference in between boys and girls!
Raising a girl is obviously not as much fun then! Then there comes the question of the marriage! Finding a man and then providing a dowry! It is a big work that parents do for a girl and families often give this feeling to their girls that they are a burden. Even if they don’t go that far as to say it, the girl will definitely notice that everything is more difficult for her than for her brothers. She does not have any freedom. Forget about choosing a husband on her own or deciding about her own relationships, here she cannot even decide about her studies, her activities or her clothes! In a time when a girl is seen like this, when she is considered a curse, who would want to be a girl or give birth to a girl?
People teach girls how to laugh, how to walk, how to talk. Don’t laugh freely, don’t giggle. Don’t give a reply that goes against the opinion of others, even if you are right, that is not right for a girl. Walk away, be quiet, lower your eyes. Boys are, if not encouraged, then at least not restricted. A reply of his free mind is seen as courage and strength of will.
We have to remember that our big country is not only made of cities like Mumbai and Delhi. The metro city culture is different from the rest of India and you may find more modern families that raise their girls with more self-esteem. When you see the rural areas and villages and the traditional environment girls are raised in there, you will see that all these restrictions and the difference in between boys and girls makes the daughters of our country weak. You kill her power of resistance! You teach her that she is ‘only a girl’.
What can a woman not do today? Women are scientists, doctors, engineers, teachers and astronauts. What do you think however, if Sunita Williams, a female astronaut with Indian roots, had been raised in a traditional Indian environment instead of in the US, would she be who is today? I don’t think so! There are female police officers and women fight in armies around the world! How can you say women are weak? You have to make your daughters believe in themselves and make them strong! They can conquer the world, but only if you don’t make them feel that they are worth less than their brothers.
So stop telling your girls ‘Sit back and be quiet, you are a girl, behave properly!’ and instead tell them ‘Get up when you see injustice, speak up for your right and the rights of others!’ Teach your boys manners, just as you teach them to your girls and, most of all, teach all of your children that they are equal and have to respect each other. Respect and equality, something that needs to be increased a lot in our culture!
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