Happy Tokenism Day

March 8 has been more of an SMS day. While some messages coaxed women to either celebrate their inner strength others suggested cherishing dreams. Some messages reminded women that they were lovely people and, yes, they should pass on the SMS to other lovely women they knew.
I was reading the messages soon after hearing out a cousin’s wedding plan, wherein among other things a brand new top-end model of a car had been promised to the groom’s family. It’s a done thing, I was told, and explained it’s difficult to get a ``suitable boy’’ these days minus such `perks’__ perhaps a new name for dowry__ that still is an integral part of many weddings. And a woman’s day celebration does not promise to change this disturbing social reality.
Nevertheless, the day is extremely popular. At work, the otherwise indifferent office boy, who I have observed prefers to first fill the water bottles of male colleagues, wished me a happy woman’s day. I wondered if he would give me preferential treatment through the year since it has finally dawned on him that I am a lovely person because I am a woman.
My office help is only the latest entrant in this gimmick-ridden celebration of womanhood, the first being mobile service providers. The others being political parties (soon after the mushy messages on dreams and strength, came those from political parties announcing the time when their party leader would make a `statement’ on women’s day), and of course, not to be left behind state government that sent an SMS a day before women’s day signed off by the women and child welfare department. The SMS was sadly only a good wish, not supported by any encouraging statistics on women welfare in the state.
E-mails too remind me how women `cement lives and families’ and are an `unbreakable bond’ or some such. The words fail to impress me even though I know they are true. A talented friend who left a job she loved to take care of her child indeed cements her family but her employer like much of the corporate world has not realized it and refuse to make facilities like day cares a mandatory feature that would help ease the burden on the overworked working mother.The hype surrounding women’s day has inadvertently brushed serious issues under the carpet. Would the day be better celebrated if it was supported by statistics of balanced sex-ratios and fewer cases of violence against women? Would it not make better sense to wish a fairly treated sex a very happy women’s day? Until then, it’s plain tokenism.