The world just celebrated the 100th International Women’s Day and I as being a woman, received a whole lot of messages wishing me “Happy Women’s Day”.

Got me thinking, as to what exactly are we celebrating?  Would it be that- we are celebrating the fact that female infanticide happens even today, or the fact that the 5th female child of an extremely wealthy family, gets left in the garbage to be devoured by hungry dogs?  I don’t think so right. So maybe it’s the fact that a girl child has to give up schooling, so that her brothers can go ahead and study, for paucity of funds.  Is it a celebration that she then has to tend to livestock and walk miles to fetch portable water for her family? Not really right.

So is it then that a woman has acid thrown at her in broad daylight by a man whose attention she has spurned or worse still get raped while the world watches in mute silence?  Is it celebrating that honor killings still happen today, or that a widow gets to become common property after the death of her husband and is physically abused by the entire village? Incorrect again. 

Let me guess again – it may be celebrations that a woman does not get selected for a job or a promotion even in this day and age because she would eventually get married and have babies! Then again it may be the celebration on an aged mother being dumped in a home, by her greedy children after having gobbled up her assets. Worse still such liabilities are carried on a charpoy and left in graveyards even before they have breathed their last!  Some celebrations right?

The widowed mother who is the sole earner of her family. The woman whose husband is a chronic drunk and has to thus be the bread earner for her children.  The woman who, is dumped by her husband after bearing him children for another and still holds her head high for the sake of her children. The woman who waits patiently for her loved one to return, who is out at war and most probably no more. The woman of today who has made it in the corporate world and yet available for her family. The mother who in spite of being ill, donates her kidney so that her child may live, or even the mother who may have buried her child and still lives to assist other mothers going through such trauma in their life.  The list is endless and so too is the strength of these women. 

Do we honestly believe that we need such commercially viable days to honor women?  So what is all the hue and cry about? Instead of just mouthing platitudes on one day in a year, let us learn to love and respect the woman in our lives. Only then will we be truly able to celebrate Gods beautiful creation – WOMAN.