International Day of the Boy Child, Men's Day, Global Week of the Brahmin, World King's Day. Ever heard of those? For obvious reasons, it is only victims who get their day. Politely called 'subalterns' or the 'oppressed', it is those who have never been allowed into the car who get to sit in the driver's seat on this one, special day. But there are driving licenses to be got, traffic rules to be followed and, most importantly, hard cash to buy the car and petrol to run it. Not surprisingly, then, the outing is limited to a single drive. Mere symbolism, snort the cynics.
It has been a century since 8 March has come to symbolise women's fight for equal rights. It was around that date in 1910 that women workers in cities across the US and Europe marched together demanding better working conditions and higher wages. Clara Zetkin, a leader of the German Social Democratic Party, had proposed observing a 'Women's Day' to highlight their demands, and the first such gathering took place on 19 March; but for reasons obscured by the mist of time, 8 March began to be the day dedicated to women. And once the UN system adopted a resolution in 1975 to mark International Women's Day, the acronym (a reliable sign of institutionalisation) IWD became a fixture. Spotlighting violence on women, reproductive rights, and economic and political rights, 8 March has been not only a rallying cry to mobilise women, but also an occasion on which to direct advocacy efforts towards policymakers around the world, and in Southasia as well.
No one can deny that the lobbying has paid off, with women's studies, women's cells, women's colleges, women's courts and women's budgets being increasingly institutionalised. Indeed, the evocative term 'women's liberation' has itself been replaced by the more sanitised notion of 'gender', a neutral term that does not acknowledge women's continued secondary status. Yet while the category of 'gender' is doubtless a conceptual leap, it also tends to take away from the reality that women and transgender people bear the brunt of the patriarchal system. Funding has poured in, and consultants have made their livelihoods around 'gender mainstreaming'. From the time when it was revolutionary merely for women to come out onto the streets till today, when token Women's Day events elicit jaded sighs, rhetoric and ritual have obscured the raison d'etre of the struggle for women's liberation.
Old fashions
The single most significant achievement of the women's movement in Southasia has been visibility for the fact that more women than men are paid lower wages, work harder, are less literate, still have to lurk behind the pillars in the corridors of power, die sooner, and are more liable to get raped and beaten – and apologise for being confident or assertive. The recognition of the need to make structural societal changes in each of these areas has been a core contribution of the women's movement. Women have progressed, and some sections of women – the educated, English-speaking, able-bodied, heterosexual, urban, upper-caste and -class Hindus – have certainly forged ahead. Women can now be pilots and scientists, police officers and media barons. Almost all job opportunities are open to women, with the exception, perhaps, of being sperm donors. But what of the common woman?