Sunday Article By Janhabi Banerjee

 I Am a Woman

I am a woman, and I am not proud of it. You have read it right. I am ‘not proud’ of being a specific gender. I exist. I belong. That I am selected to take part in this journey of life is the sole point of my pride. I am not the body I am not the mind either. I am a part of this creation so as you are, he is, or a transgender is.
I seek for no equality because I never find any inequality. When the universe never discriminates between any sort of gender or species, society, a man-made system, can never do that to my ‘self’. If I ever feel so, it is the consequence of my poor mental state. I am not waiting for anyone’s approval to exist. My existence is already approved; thus, I am breathing here.
I am a free soul bound by some commitments. I am here to celebrate my responsibilities with joy, love, and thrill. Nothing more and nothing less. Now comes the context of women emancipation. Who says they are not already? Who decides that? Society? What is even that? It’s a constitution to make sure the wellbeing of human race. If that’s a hindrance in my way of development, I am free to wipe it out.
If I talk about women’s emancipation, it’s nothing but accepting the fact that they are not. Every vice or virtue starts with an individual and then it expands through his or her surroundings. I have never considered myself as a “freedom-seeker” entity. So, I am not a woman who struggles to survive. All the essentials provided by nature come with equal access to me. Like ‘success’, ‘peace’, ‘joy’, ‘sorrow’, ‘Freedom’ is also a mental state. One has to practice that. If the inner ‘I’ is vibrating with the same frequency of universal law of emancipation, I am unstoppable. Everyone is.
We as a human race have a lot to do in terms of making our beloved planet a better place. Gender discrimination and fighting for the emancipation of a particular gender are nothing but hindrances. So, is 8th March not a day of value? Oh, it very much is. When there is an imbalance, nature brings in the equilibrium. As I mentioned earlier, we imitate nature. Once we also created the balance.
History says,
“The first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States on 28 February. The Socialist Party of America designated this day in honour of the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.”
But the first milestone in US was much earlier – in 1848. Indignant over women were being barred from speaking at an anti-slavery convention, Americans Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott congregate a few hundred people at their nation’s first women’s rights convention in New York. Together they demand civil, social, political and religious rights for women in a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. A movement is born.” (Quoted)
The importance of 8th March is nothing more than Independence Day. Celebrating Independence Day reminds us of the history of the day along with the fact that we as a country are already independent, free from colonialism.
Why is 8th March not observed with similar vibe and due respect for the history of the day?
I will never take pride in being a ‘woman’, when I am already proud to be an enlightened and emancipated human being.
Period.