woomen!

Women make bad drivers
They are good at cooking and shedding tears
If they must work, they must work as receptionists and personal assistants.
It’s a man’s world.

You’ve probably grown up hearing these “facts” about women. From ever since I can remember the role of a woman in society is portrayed as a frail body created to cook and cater to man’s fantasies. In Bollywood women are merely used as props to increase sales at the box office via "item numbers". Though the situation in the Hindi film Industry is improving on the surface ,most actresses complain that that they don’t get “substantial” roles and are merely arm candies to their more “ capable” male counterparts. Look at our ads ,minimally clad women are used to sell anything from biscuits to toilet commodes!
These days a major concern in all reality talent shows is that the voting is heavily tilted against the female particpants and the viewers are following a "let no woman win" policy!
Why go far? Have a voting session for even the “prettiest person” in our class and the “male contestant” will hands down! Jokes apart , chauvinism is all pervasive .

I’m no feminist or trying to wage the age old war of the martians and Venusians.
But Let’s have some perspective on why women are subjugated to men in our society. I don’t blame them entirely. There’re women who capitalize on their feminity and be the “babe in distress” on purpose to draw sympathy votes. Some even pretend to be dumb to be noticed more for their looks because the average male can see better than he can think !
How many guys actually know that the most beautiful woman Aishwarya Rai studied architecture and was a topper at school and college?
Or that Amisha Patel is an Economics gold medalist from tuft university, US?
Chak de was a revolutionary film that showed what proper training and will power could do to women. It’s a different thing that only Preeti Sabarwal was noticed the most.

Women complain that they are judged on their looks all the time but men get away with their muscles and charm. But do we do anything to prove them accusers wrong?

When I joined the quiz team ,being the first female quizzer from CMS, there were murmurs around . How could a girl quiz? Something which apparently needed more brains than other events. But come a few fests and all skeptics had their answer.

Examples of revolutionary women like Indira Gandhi , Kiran Bedi ,Kalpana chawla etc are far and few in between. The real paragon of woman power is the everyday woman. It’s Your mother. Your Sister. Your maid.
The latter gets up at 6 in the morning, does her own personal chores , sends her kids to school, work at 5 houses getting plenty of tongue-lashing along with the work , comes back late evening , cooks and braves a drunkard and a good for nothing husband.

A housewife multitasks by juggling cooking , cleaning ,she is best at allocation of resources by managing bills and still saving some for the rainy day and she’s the best example for HR when she handles her family in their myriad moods.” If women can run a home , they can run a business.” Said a recent ad series by Economic times specially for women.

And the result is for all of us to see. More and more women are jumping on the corporate ladder and doing well for themselves. Infact according to a recent report women make better managers thanks to their natural analytical ability and a strong emotional quotient.
Mentalities are slowly changing and educated and broad minded people are beginning to appreciate what woman are capable of. But is that a significant number?

Let me just leave all the readers with these thoughts.
How can woman be a pain when they go through so much pain to give and nurture life?
How come they’re called the “weaker sex” when they make men go weak in the knees?
How come a woman apparently lower on the grey cells make the best teachers world over??
How come they’re called bad drivers , when 90% of the drivers in accidents turn out to be male? OK agreed we might not be the answer to Schumacher and are rather wobbly while parking but we’d rather reach 5 minutes late but alive !

So wake up and smell the feminine fragrance guys. The hand that rocks the cradle can rule the world.