In formal terms, nobody denies the truth that women are half of humanity. But practices seen even at the top political levels in the world prove that the half of humanity is being overshadowed. Even the most glamorized women have been working to strengthen the existing patriarchal patterns based on gender disparity.
Especially, the least developed countries have a worse status as per human development indicators. Those indicators expose the worst conditions of the women. The countries where women face the worse conditions have the lowest productivity because half of the sky remains discouraged or suppressed in the mainstream development processes.
Generally, policymakers in most of the countries preach women’s rights in political and socio-economic sectors. Their policy experts and peripheral advocates often stress on the specific rights of women. Almost all the issues of women are also the issues of men. They are the overall issues of the countries. However, ruling forces divide communities into isolated advocacies, preserving their ruling supremacy. They have so far succeeded in re-consolidating their ruling supremacy without letting women and other deprived sections of population dive into the flaws of the system. They are watchful against any voices differing from their existing structures. They are not willing at all to change their structures. They only stress on letting women and other deprived sections represent their structures. This is the crux of the matter.
The existing discriminations against women are rooted in the nature of the political and socio-economic structures maintained unquestioned for centuries. Eliminating such discriminations is not a day-long job. Nor is it a happy-go-lucky quick-rich paid advocacy industry focused on seminars held in five star hotels.
We have always strengthened the human society divided into masters and slaves. Within our master-slave structure, there is superiority-inferiority complex further enfeebling the mentality of the deprived. One of the deprived communities in the human society are women—the community treated as sexual and commercial objects to an exacerbating extent.
Legislative, Executive, Judiciary, Media and Education, including cultural forces must consciously work to transform their mindset—the first need—to begin genuinely working to eliminate discriminations against women. The way the media are taught to portray women needs changes. The way cultural forces such as films and entertainment industries glamorize women for profit motives needs changes. Without first changing the psychological patterns deeply set in the minds of people, equality concept will remain empty.
The work starts from today, and with primary level of education. Without molding children’s mindset in a new way, it is far less effective to advocate women’s equal rights at other times.
Above all, one way of mainstreaming women is to teach them to assess and analyze the existing political and socio-economic systems and structures.