I have now realized that we were never truly free. All this time, we’ve been deluded of being raised from where we once were to where we are now. We’re so naive that they allured us with 33% rights and we’re still striving for it. The percentage in itself is chauvinistic, as Nepal’s female population is greater and yet we can’t have the benefits of half the power.[break]
I get the platform to fulfill my dreams. I have all the resources I want. I’ve been given the liberty to steer the wheels of my life.
But is that sufficient? Is that the only freedom Nepali females ask for? What about freedom without fear? I want to wear the latest outfit but I’ll have to worry about what the society says; even more, how the guys in the streets look at me, or rather let me say, look through me.
I fall in love. I have to make sure my bones have the nerves to enable me to run away if my resolution doesn’t thrill the ones around me, or else I’ll be perished. For some reasons, if I refuse to please my husband, he’ll literally burn the feminine parts of mine, and that’ll be the end of my story. I would be fortunate if I didn’t have to. My travel in a local vehicle is an opportunity for all the perverts to bring out the real men in them. And yet, on the surface, I’m completely free to do things as I please.
It’s a matter of immense pride to see Nepali females in the society trying to keep girls from getting married at 12, or encouraging them to go to school, or prevent women from being accused of practicing witchcraft. It’s infuriating how people come up with such lame excuses just to have the females at their feet.
What about the freedom of those working for freedom itself? Who’s going to take care of that? The biggest irony is that those very females work all day long to boost up their kindred souls but still need their husbands or dads to fetch them home if they are late.
For a scenario 20 years back, it was appropriate to define Nepali women’s empowerment as uplifting them from the shackles of futile social norms and traditions. But it’s high time we increased its dimensions. Sure, Nepali women need education and rights. But at the same time, they must be allowed to use it freely – and, of course, with no fear. What they need today is an unconventional sort of reinforcement. There’s no point in giving wings to a bird if the wind doesn’t let it soar high into the sky.
In the least, it’s not too much to ask for security in freedom for women.
We’re optimistic about better tomorrows that may come along with the Constitution. But we obviously don’t want it in the present state Nepali females find themselves.
Had this been a school essay, I could’ve ended it with a hopelessly hopeful line like “All of us should immediately start working for women.” But right now, I just want to face the fact that we feminine class still don’t know what it’s like to live without expecting freedom without fear.
The writer is a computer science and engineering student in Allahabad, India.
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