It is estimated that a billion girls and women face violence at some time or the other during their lives. There was the global call for One Billion to rise, last year. As a result, we are moving on a track with equality and safety of all genders. We should create a feeling of oneness, friendliness and not being alone. Gender equality will make the world better, safer, happier and more dignified for girls and women. It will also make the world kinder, less violent and demanding for men as well. To make the world a more fairer place, efforts should be made from both sides- Women and Men; Girls and Boys.
Men behave according to the socially constructed ideas. It demands them to be more, strong, powerful and potent. Patriarchy is a system of social organization which works on men's superiority to women. Masculinity is a social product of ways of being male. But all men are not hard within. They can fail financially, socially and sexually, but they lack the emotional cure for these failures.
VIOLENCE AND MASCULINITY
The urge to dominate and inability to deal with failures lead men to be violent. This is how it became an element of masculinity. To be a better man, one needs, constant vigilance and work, especially, for younger men. The personal insecurities or fear of failure, lead many men, during their teens into fear, isolation, anger, self-hatred, aggression and self-punishment.
Only strong men can act with compassion and gentleness. Weak and insecure men become violent. Today, women are working in labour market, but unequally paid, exploited largely, vulnerable to violence and are denied social security. But when men feel confused, they react violently. This violence they do, so as to compensate for their insecurity and low self-esteem and to hold on to power. They use violence to assert their authority. Men seek not only to dominate women, but other men also. Suppressed and oppressed men reclaim their manhood by violence to women. Violence against women is the last resort of the defeated men.
WE SHOULD KNOW
For every woman, who become strong, there is a man who becomes weak. For every woman who is tired of being called an "emotional female", there is a man who is who is denied the right to be emotional. For every woman, who becomes a sex object, there is a man who worries his potency. For every woman who is called unfeminine, when she competes, there is a man for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity. For every woman, who is denied right wage, there is a man who should bear an entire family.
Today, women have learnt the spirit of equality. They are fighting all odds to follow their hearts and win their goals, in homes as well as work-places. It is men who still need to learn to give up their sense of entitlement, previlege and power. Also, to realize, in doing so they are letting themselves free. Only a gender-equal world will set us free. For every woman, who fight for her liberation, there is a man who finds the way to freedom has been made a little easier.
