Wares Ali Khan :
A recent incident published in various media outlets in connection with a 23-year-old woman who has been forced to leave her husband’s house for giving birth to a baby girl in Gaibandha’s Sadullapur Upazila of the country has made us deeply shocked and saddened.This instance utterly depicts a middle age mindset – even in the age of knowledge, science and civilization – that giving birth to a girl child results in such dire consequences for the mother. Is the mother solely responsible for giving birth to a baby-girl? Or what is wrong with expecting a girl-child in the family? It is nothing but a pervasive attitude and unfavorable sentiment towards the girls and women even today when we are living in a so-called educated, civilized, and markedly advanced society!
There was no dignity, safety, and security for the women in the middle age back in nearly 1450 years. The birth of a girl-child was intensely unwelcoming, repulsive, and considered demeaning as well as defaming for the family and the tribe as well. Even girls had to be buried alive deep in the soil by the fathers. This is a sigh of relief that such unequal and extremely blind social structure had been erased. But many of us are still living with those like-minded people who are not willing enough to show honor, dignity, equality, safety and security to the women as well as render them a gender sensitive living space.
Even in this epoch of development and amidst numerous achievements the birth of a girl is not welcomed and greeted with gladness and fanfare rather treated with intense disappointment, unfortunate outcome, and biased inclination later which can surely lead the treatment between boys and the girls into a noticeably discriminatory state. This prejudicial and misogynist tendency is extremely unsolicited and far more deserves to be ejected now on from the psyche of all individuals living in the society.
The hegemonic society and the prevailing patriarchal dominance even want to hinder the spirit of women in the healthy societal approach and limit their contributions in some greater context. Till now we have not been enough cognizant to set women free with regard to their choice, decision, and free-will to be successfully involved with education, business, economy, and politics with their fullest possible potential. Our society is however accustomed with conceiving the archaic thought that boys once will adopt the responsibility of the family on the shoulder, especially during the parents’ old-age crisis. In contrast, girls will be married and occupied in the husband’s house with hardly an opportunity to offer financial back-up. This secretly cherished conception still leads many couples, either in rural settings or urban, to constitute a noticeable difference in the interference between boys and girls.
Our invasive, unequal social dynamics and the unruly patriarchal access have narrowed our sense of conscience in respect that we are no longer eager to be a biological father of girl-child either, as still we show our willingness of having either a boy or girl-child. We are heading fast to the fourth industrial revolution and living in the post-modern society where our thinking pattern and human sentiment are expected to have a sound ground sharpened with all about a positive and equal world for humans irrespective of gender. But in the era of massive advancements and the buzzing sound of equality and gender sensitiveness, the reality is surprisingly negative, detrimental, and ancient-alike.
To break the glass ceiling of thinking women are weaker requires a condensed feeling towards them, and seeks after positive feedback from the male counterparts all the way. Our existing social perception should be remolded in a bid to form a girls and women sensitive social structure. Our tendency, mindset, psychology have to be embedded with a sense of care, compassion, sympathy, empathy, and equality to furnish women’s rights, dignity, and safety.
Women are the part of civilization since we are the ultimate part of women. To deny the women folk is to deny our existence in the earth as they contribute to shaping future generations. They undoubtedly carry through a massive role with a variety of responsibility. Facing many odds, they often remain unsecured, underrated and underestimated which is an obvious barrier to their projected development. To create a society where girls and women are welcomed and greeted with grand events is all about possessing a willing mindset and a long-requirement to change our uneven patriarchal construct.
Statically we know that the half our total population are women and they need to be out of the queues of disparity, oppression, suppression, and violence. Besides they need to have respect, positive treatment, and equal opportunity for blooming in a complacent manner.
(Mr. Khan is a teaching professional)
