It’s 2017! And just last week I was reading about how the Indian censor board of film certification has refused to certify a women empowerment film “Lipstick under my Burkha” for a theatrical release claiming it’s “too lady oriented”. It’s 2017 and just yesterday I was reading about a certain politician saying “women ask for it because they wear jeans”. It’s 2017 and just last month my friend called and told me how she was being forced to have a child! It’s 2017 and according to the report of the world economic forum, the gender gap won’t close until 2186. Of course, one way to deal with this situation is that we wait till 2186 or we all step up and do our bit to create a world where if we all can’t be equal economically, we can at least not be divided on the basis of something as basic and natural as gender?

On the 5th of March, thousands of people marched on the roads of central London, calling for the rights of women to be protected around the world. The march encouraged both men and women to participate, the organizers believe the answer to this inequality lies in all of us coming together to fight for each other. While wondering why do we still need to fight for our rights, I came across this poster from the London March and I got my answer:

That’s right! Gender equality is not (and never was) a women’s issue, it is a human issue. At the end of the day, if we all decide to do our bit as humans, everything will fall in place. We won’t need a certain politician to tell us what women deserve or not, neither will we need a particular political party to tell us whether women have the right to abort or not. The next time we make fun of a guy friend because he is too effeminate, or we call a girl “bossy” because she has an opinion, we must step back and reconsider what is it that we are fighting for in theory, when we we are hollow when it comes to actions. We must learn to respect each other as humans first; the basic argument that a girl must be respected because she is a girl, is flawed. A girl must be respected because she commands respect, and the same goes for the other genders. We can choose whoever we want to be and we have no right to question what the other wants to be as long as that’s not harming anyone.

It’s 2017 and we don’t seem to be moving forward at all. This women’s day, maybe we need to move beyond the divisions we have created for ourselves; the divide in gender, caste, creed, religion; this superficial divide that only leads to violence and aggression and move towards a space where we look into ourselves and question what truly matters.