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Dr. Rashid Askari - January 31st, 2011

But
how long will this continue? How long will the silent cries of these
helpless women go unheeded? The buck stops here. It is time to take it
into serious account. Women constitute the half of our total population
and take equal part in the overall development of the nation. How can we
expect a developed nation without a developed woman population?
Napoleon Bonaparte shows women development as an essential prerequisite
for national development. To quote:” Give me good mothers and I will
give you a good nation.” Abigail Adams, the first Second Lady and the
second First Lady of the United States clarifies: “If we mean to have
heroes, statesmen, and philosophers we should learn women.” The former U
N Secretary General Kofi Annan echoes the same view:” When women
thrive, all of the society benefits and succeeding generations are given
a better start in life.” So, there is no room for belittling women’s
role in social development. We should not turn a deaf ear to their
sorrows and sufferings any longer.
But how can we help it? The laws relating to the trial of women
oppression in our country should be implemented in right earnest. New
laws should be made to try the mental torture cases in particular. The
government, the law-makers, and the members of the civil society come up
with the introduction of specific law regarding mental torture on our
women.
But that is sure not going to be the panacea for this problem. As a
matter of fact, the crux of the problem is related to the very culture
of the community. So there should be efforts to change the cultural
attitudes towards women. American author and activist Charlotte Bunch
sees eye to eye with this. In her words: “Sexual, racial, gender
violence and other forms of discrimination and violence in a culture
cannot be eliminated without changing culture.” Above all, women should
not only be hanging on the charitable favours to be extended to them
from time to time as ‘the weaker sex’. They should learn to stand on
their own feet and determine their real enemy and then wage fight. An
eminent contemporary feminist Betty Friedan points out: “Men are not the
enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women’s denigration of
themselves.” Friedan also shows the way to emancipation. In her own
words: “The only way for a woman, as for a man, is to find herself, to
know herself as a person.(not as a woman).There is sure no gainsaying
Friedan’s prescription with regard to women in Bangladesh in particular
and world- women in general.
(END)
Dr. Rashid Askari writes fiction and column and teaches English at Kushtia Islamic University.
Email: rashidaskari65@yahoo.com
Source: http://www.thekushtiatimes.com
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