Women empowerment and gender equality Addressing the equality challenges.

 As we go on living in the 21st century, we often tend to believe that women are no longer seen as the weaker sex. That they are treated equally and like men in our society. But is it really true? Let’s think again. Crime against women has not decreased. If anything it has been increasing in the past decade. We need to ask ourselves has the human mind evolved with human society? Is the position of women has changed at all or just has shifted into a more a subtle discriminative form? 

We can’t deny that women have come forward on many fronts and have been accepted and in some rare cases have been treated the same as men but in the majority cases, it is not that different. Many taboos are still attached with hiring a woman as a boss. A recent study conducted in Washington, D.C. claims that male employees are more likely to quit their jobs if they have a female boss. Apparently, female employees are moody and more unprofessional and are more likely to throw temper tantrums.

Gender equality is learned from childhood. Children see and observe the behaviors of the elders and adapt them as ‘normal’. Nowadays, these have been intentional, parents have become more aware of this and verbally try to teach their children about it. However, they happen to miss the fact that children learn more from observing an action rather than planned ways. The fact that the mother has to do most work in the house even if she is working, she has to make adjustments in her life after marriage, and brothers are mostly excused out of household chores start teaching children about discrimination between two genders which is prevailed in the society. Later, this same concept of gender equality takes different forms and leads to the formation of male and female stereotypes. 

On the bright side, open discussions are taking place. People are becoming more aware that empowering women is not just about giving them education but equal opportunity to use that education. To facilitate them to grow on basis of their capabilities not just because they are women or 'weaker sex'. Hopefully, the next generation to come would divide humans in social context on the basis of the characteristics and not on biological differences.