Women Empowerment Versus Tradition

Women Empowerment Verse Tradition

The image courtesy to Pexel.com and Canva frame

Her decision to end her life was a declaration that she reached a cul-de-sac in her marital journey and that neither of her parents, family, community, society, or the man she loved had offered her a leeway. And with her death, she asks disturbing questions to those who live to find answers to them. 

An earlier Cause A Chatter post, Gender Discrimination and Domestic Violence in India I concluded with a quote from a study.

 

"Although gender equality becomes statutory it could not change the mindset of common people, which was ruled by the age-old traditions that accorded a secondary position only to women in the society. This may be one of the major reasons why gender equality could not be materialised in letter and spirit as provided in the constitution."

In this post, I substantiate the above conclusion by citing the tragic destiny of a young woman in Kerala.

The Life and Death of Vismaya

Vismaya was a lively chirpy young woman who stepped into matrimony with hopes and ambition. She was beautiful, born into a middle-class family, her parents were educated and employed, her brother and sister-in-law highly qualified and employed, and she was doing her bachelor's degree in Ayurveda. 

She lived in Kollam, Kerala, a state in India that boasts a premium position in national literacy and female education. She was married to Kiran Kumar, an employee in the motor vehicle department in Kerala.  

On June 21, a year and 20 days after marriage, Vismaya committed suicide by hanging on a shawl inside the couple's ensuite bathroom. On May 26, eleven months after the incident, Kollam Additional Sessions Court-1 convicted Kiran of dowry death, harassment, and abetment to suicide and punished him with a concurrent jail term of ten years.  

Kiran Kumar took a substantial dowry from Vismaya's parents- 1,25 acres of land, gold worth eighty sovereigns and a vehicle in the class Toyota Yaris. The public heard during the court hearing that he felt he was worth more than the dowry- a luxury vehicle and gold worth a hundred sovereigns. 

The Public Reactions

It's a pattern that in the aftermath of such incidents, the print, social and visual media make a bang of clangour about the moral and ethical degradation in the society that last a day or two. The public also makes enraged remarks and laments over the loss. At the level of their angry outbursts at Kiran and sympathy towards Vismaya, one would hope for moderation in the occurrences, only to learn that the women's death continues unabated. And if those moralists turn out to be the perpetrators of abuse and violence in their private lives, one need not get surprised.   

Narratives were booming inside and outside the courtroom on how the young woman mourned her one-year matrimony. The troubles in the paradise had commenced from the start. And in her attempts to find resolve and forge ahead, she was alone. 

Her decision to end her life was a declaration that she reached a cul-de-sac in her marital journey and that neither of her parents, family, community, society and the man she loved had offered her a leeway. And with her death, she asks disturbing questions to those who live to find answers to them. 

The Disturbing Questions

• Why did Vismaya stay in the matrimony though she found no love?
• What was her notion about a woman's role in the family/ society?
• Why did she decide to undertake the inner turmoil caused by her husband's harassment and physical and mental torture as her responsibility to work on to prove to the world that her matrimony wasn't a broken one? 
• What was her concept about love in a relationship?

News Minute observes that Vismya accepted her husband's wrongdoings, fearing the social stigma of a broken marriage.    

Vismaya's family, including her parents and sister-in-law, were at the notion of her troubled matrimony- the harassment and the physical and emotional tortures she was undergoing at her husband's residence, where Kiran's parents also lived. 

 A few times, when the torturing and harassment at Kiran's home turned unbearable, she came to live with her parents but went back to Kiran in haste. She confessed to her parents she feared the society stamping her as a woman who failed the matrimony if she stayed with her parents.  

Her father disclosed at a panel discussion on the TV that his daughter insisted on staying in the marriage to keep with society's concept of virginity. She remains committed to the man who touched her body her entire life. And she believed that love in a relationship is undergoing harassment, misogyny, disrespect, insult, pain and suffering from her husband and those women who deviate from that are deviants.   

The court hasn't raised any questions regarding how the young girl had built up such notions that proved harmful to her welfare and existence. Her parents have played a considerable role in building up those toxic notions about a woman's responsibilities and the concept of love in a man-woman relationship.  

Woman empowerment

In a society slanted towards outdated social norms and proclivity for male domination at the expense of the females, the government, law and order and the legal systems must work towards correcting them. That is the idea and the call for woman empowerment.  

  

People inclined to the tradition strain their forehead at this concept. They take it as doing an undue favour towards women. Women empowerment is the idea of straightening the atrocious past. It's not favouring women over men and discrediting men. It is a subsection of human empowerment and human right. UN has made it mandatory for every nation in its membership to implement the appropriate legislation to make it a reality. The government commitments, however, vary according to the culture and tradition taking hold of it and the people.

Women empowerment is people having power and control over their lives. It means that people are equal citizens, respected and confident in their communities.  

Women's empowerment promises long-lasting impacts on their lives, families, communities, and society. Women empowered to make choices in their lives have greater control over their health, career, matrimony, and quality of life. This empowerment touches on the various areas of their lives-individual, gender, social, educational, economic, psychological, and physical. 

If the stipulations of the UN were more than the lip service, it should have empowered the parental generation. Vismaya's case is a sad reminder that it hasn't happened, and she paid for that with her own life. She had no human agency to make choices in her personal life.  

Global Situation and education

As I mentioned early, women's empowerment is a function of the political and cultural norms and standards regulated and unregulated that a nation upholds and their developmental status and indicators. The global picture of femicide is not a rosy one. According to UNWOMEN one in every three women globally experience physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner. 

Education is considered a deterrent against the negative trends of human development, women empowerment, welfare, and progress in societies and the nation. Kerala is a state keeping premier standards at various developmental indicators and so a baffling case in point.  

Conclusion

Vismaya is just one case. The guilty verdict of Kiran Kumar and the jail terms of punishments he received put hope in people as a deterrent against the femicide. But the number of women losing lives by suicide or murder in homes is climbing upwards.