Rights of A Girl Child
Women were not born into inequity; they are deuxieme sexe only by resignation and passivity. The author reflects on the plight of the girl child in India and suggests a manifesto of action.
The right of the girl child in India is intimately linked up with the status of women. Therefore the issue is not discrimination against the girl child but the innate pervasive prejudice against woman per se. Because girls are regarded as miniature or edited version of women she suffers from the same disabilities and the same sacrifices expected of her albeit on a smaller scale. Her short uneventful childhood is a period of familiarization with her future role of marriage and housekeeping. She doesn't need to invent the world . It is laid out for her. She has to imperceptibly slip in the designated role without any rebellious gestures or even mild questioning. That is like a good girl.
The fact of her dependence on the men folk is woven in the fabric of her life; incorporated in the cycle of seasons. The festival of Rakhi renews the protector protectee relation every year. On the occasion of her marriage, when she is given away in Kanyadan, she is securely tethered to her husband. Her future is now directed. The "give away" will now know no destiny other than that of her husband. Karwa Chouth- Teej, Bat-Savitry are a rituals of fast and oblation, for the longevity of the husband. Jeevitaya is a talisman to charm away the threat to her son. Not only the Gods but trees and animals mountains have to be propitiated, and her life is one interminable calendar of fasting, praying, self-denial and sacrifice. But despite all these preemptive, preventive measures, should she become a widow she must offer Sati; consign her body to the fire in order to be united in spirit with her husband. Her voluntary exclusion from the world of active participation defines her. Her self-definition excludes any thoughts of active participation. Generations of girls brought up in such a milieu cannot but by deliberate remonstration and by a process of osmosis inculcate the attitude of their older selves. Print this page | Email to a friend | Viewers comments | Post comments Except for their sexual differentiation, at birth, the male and female child can't be told apart. They have the same physiological and emotional needs. In fact till they achieve puberty and develop secondary sexual characteristics, they are very much similar. Yet they are constantly made to recognize the sad fact that "the body of woman is one of the essential elements of her situation in the world". (It would be interesting to speculate if her fate would be different if children were to be born in an androgynous state.) She has to be neat and tidy; not to mess around; climbing trees and other activities are considered tom boyish-in the most pejorative sense of the world for her. Experiencing the world at first hand without the territory first having been scouted around and found safe for her by her protectors, guardians-is ruled off the ground. Cognitively she may not understand but instinctively she begins to give in, under the weight of security protection tutelage. Even though she has the use of her limbs she is forced to accept crutches; emotionally and intellectually crippled, she fails to achieve an autonomous status. But once she has been locked up her in "feminine domain", the society comes down on her, with the full weight of responsibility. Caring baby sitting, helping in domestic chore are assigned to her, as naturally, as they would be to any adult member of her sex. A girl child can be considered fit to undertake the responsibility of motherhood even before she is herself mature enough In many states she is still married at the age of 10 the child marriage act not with standing. While for the boys the parents often dream up a future beyond the skies, for the girl child marriage is her ultimate destiny. like a baton in a relay race she is passed on from father to husband to son.
Women thus do not have an image of themselves, separate from that created for them by their culture. The unquestioned submission has led to such an intellectual narcosis that-some notable exceptions-women have not even begun to realize the inequity or unfairness of the situation. If anything they seem to love their subjugation and flaunt their signs of slavery and bondage. The flaming red vermilion, the Mangl Sutra the amulets, the porringer all these are designed to make woman legible like money, like private property; these brand them with the mark of ownership. A whole corpus of myth, a rich forest of symbolism's vague, translucent, barely understood-has drilled the fact that they are inferior and only "honorary human beings". Those who are interested may just consider the semiology of the Hindu marriage rites. The males-father, brother etc-of the girl voluntarily demean themselves one to one before the bridegroom's party. The exaggerated elaborate-little display of courtesy and inferiority is a spectacle, a ritual self-abasement for having produced a female child. The men stoop at their individual levels only to sanctify the power equation of dominance and submission-at the level of gender. No body, least of all women themselves, ask the obvious question whence came this relationship? Who appointed men as the lords and masters; lawgivers and dispensers of justice? No formal or informal consultations with the women as a group-who constitute half the human race-has ever taken place. Yet women in all societies, countries and cultural traditions but most notably in India accept them unquestioningly as their very own. When the mind is colonized the body gives in a gesture of total submission. It can suffer domestic violence, rape or unwanted pregnancy and a hundred other indignities with equanimity and a sense of fatalism
Rights of a Girl Child
Right of the girl child does cast a duty on the parents and the society, but can their denial be tackled in the same manner that any other justiciable or culpable wrong can? What can we do to a parent, who prohibits her promising daughter from joining an art-school, because it is co-educational? Should the fear of the parent, on her score be held against him? An anxious mother haunted by premonitions of death keen "to give her daughters hand" (mark the vocabulary!) in early marriage. Should the well intentioned but culpable haste be held against her? And in any case what agency of law will enforce these rights and bring the offenders to book father-brother-mother. The working of two acts will illustrate the point: first the dowry act. The wholesale violation of this draconian act, with such ease, unanimity and bonhomie is unparalleled even in a lawless society like ours. The carrying out of gender tests for foeticide have been criminalized and yet expectant parents routinely flock to such clinics, anxious to know the 'sex' of the temporary parasite housed in the woman's body. And should it turn out to a female, the termination of the pregnancy can be resorted to with equal ease.
[This message has been edited by Gymnasophyst (edited August 09, 2002).]