What is a woman? A woman is the “fairer-sex”, a “submissive”, an “inferior” thus must always be kept within boundaries: this seems to be the prevalent ideology that surrounds women. West or East does not do much to dismantle it – though the East has been romanticized as the nation of female mutilation/subjugation while the West its opposite, a statement from UN-Secretary, General Ban Ki-Moon, illustrates the truth:
“ Most societies prohibit such violence – yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned.”
Violence against females is omnipresent in the world be it in secular states or religious ones. The crimes against women are various: physical rape, emotional rape, acid burning, and flogging to preserve a religious belief – all these are happening on a global scale but are highlighted in developing countries such as Bangladesh.
Yesterday is an African woman. She is illiterate. She has a daughter and is a housewife. She finds out from a doctor that she has AIDS. As she is not promiscuous she decides to ask her husband to tell her the truth. Instead, he savagely beats her. Yesterday knows that death is imminent thus her only goal now is to give her daughter the education she could not have. Yesterday is the eponymous character of the African film Yesterday which was nominated for Best Foreign Film in 2005. Though the story is fictional and has an African setting the situation in Bangladesh is no different.
Despite the presence of social welfare gropus and women’s rights movements, violence persists – be it a rural setting or an urban one. “Setting” is important for many people have the misconception that urban women are “free”. They are not. Though some women are able to have a desired profession, their numbers do not thrive.
Basically, a woman must guard her modesty, refrain from being too social and must aspire to become a mother and a housewife: these limiting roles are still integrated into the young girls of today. A flexible lifestyle is inhibited by incorporating fears of religious immorality or social indecency. To a man, many restrictions do not apply. In fact, promiscuity in a man is many a times outrageously forgiven whereas in a woman it is taboo. This phenomenon is noticed in recent sex scandals: women who are shown in pornographic material are ousted by society despite the fact that some of these women have had no knowledge of being recorded in such situations. Their only crime is pre-marital sex. However, their male partners, who had shamelessly made profit by exposing their intimate acts, are never questioned for their actions.
The definition of a criminal is still limited to thief and murderer as a recent cover story of The Daily Star Weekend Magazine has shown that even in cases of rape and adultery the women are blamed regardless of $the situation or evidence stating otherwise.
I believe that women can only be free from such ludicrous biases when they are not looked down upon as the inferior sex. It is important to teach people that humans are equal regardless of what sex they are born with. So, we must celebrate both the sexes and not punish or reward anyone for being a man or women.
