Women need to get involved more in politics

For the last month or so general elections were going on in India (polling ended on 12th May 2014). These elections were to elect representatives (MP or member of parliament) for Loksabha (lower house of the Indian parliament). The number of seats in this house decides which party or parties will come into power and form the next government. Obviously, during any social gathering of friends and family, the topic of politics always used to come for discussion and there used to be very passionate and heated discussion about politics. One thing that I noticed during these discussions was that rarely women participated in these discussions. Women were against discussing political issues during these gatherings, maybe because of the aggressive way people argue about politics.  Politics and religion both topics result in very passionate and intense discussions and arguments, some people don't like to participate in such discussions just because they are not comfortable with the way people behave (or attack each other) during these discussions. I can understand this but I fail to understand why some people feel so against these topics that they don't want to touch them. After all, both (politics and religion) have been part of our society for ages and they both affect our lives in one way or another. Politics especially affects everyone as government and its policies do affect our day-to-day lives.

I wrote many posts about issues related to gender discrimination, women suppression, and sexual harassment, these all are socially and politically very relevant and sensitive issues. If women want to bring change in society's attitude towards them, if they want to eliminate gender discrimination and highlight the problems that are faced by them, then they need to become politically active. They need to participate more in the political process to highlight their issues and add their perspective to political discourse. If the political field remains dominated by males then even if politicians discuss women-related issues we will only get a male perspective. We will always hear what some men think about these issues, even if they are feminists, it is a male perspective. It is important to hear what females think about their own problems and to make their voices heard women need to take an active interest in politics and become part of the narrative. Depending on the establishment to solve their problems is not a very reliable solution. 

I always try to invite everyone to discuss these topics, I always do this in my own home where we all discuss various topics related to these issues openly. In our home, everyone is free to express their views or challenge anyone's opinion. These types of discussions and debates are very helpful and necessary according to me. I always engage in such discussions with many of my friends but female representation is always missing or very limited, especially during Indian gatherings. This situation is not only limited to social gatherings or functions, if you look at some reports created by Ravish Kumar (a journalist with NDTV) which were telecasted during this election season, wherever he goes he only gets male opinions about political issues, and he had to take extra special efforts even to make women speak to express their political views. I think this needs to change. Blaming society and patriarchal culture for all their problems and issues is not going to help all the time, women need to step up and take responsibility to solve their own problems. Currently, politics is a male-dominated field, if women don't show any interest in it then it will remain male-dominated for more years to come. The first step in this direction will be to understand the political process and political issues by getting involved in political discussions which will help them to form informed and independent opinions about various issues. Depending on others, especially on male members of their family, is not going to help women to solve their issues.

I have also noticed that it's not that women don't have their own opinions about politics and related issues, but they hesitate to share it, they think this is not the area where they belong, or their opinion is not needed or valued. Women constitute almost half of the world's population, and their active participation in every field is necessary for the progress of our civilization. They need to voice their opinion, they need to make informed choices on their own. Unless they make conscious efforts to change this situation male dominance continue in every field. Politics and religion are two major areas that are still dominated by males and by controlling these two fields they control the entire society. If females want equality in society, they want equal rights and fair treatment then they need to make their presence felt in both these areas. They need to break barriers set by society on them to enter these fields and show that they can also lead politics and religion. Unless women start actively taking interest in these areas, we are not going to see this change and I hope this change comes very soon.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]