Women's Day 2011

Happy belated International Women's Day! As can be imagined, given the feminist nature of the organization I work with, there were many celebrations to be had this week. This year is the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, so the events had to be particularly special. Officially, the day falls on March 8th each year. Nishtha held their celebration on Tuesday while Jagori held its two days later on Thursday. That way, the staff and friends of both organizations could attend both events.

Nishtha's celebration fell on a lovely spring afternoon. Participants were greeted at the gate with a hug from the Nishtha women. They put a dot of red coloring on my brow and tied a red protection string around my wrist, with a marigold tied into it.

The event started in Nishtha's community center with a video on water and environmental concerns made by Vandana. Making women's participation in environmental issues a focus for the afternoon, they went on to discuss issues such as cementing in streams and burning plastic. I was shocked to see just how many local women did not know burning plastic releases cancer-causing toxic gasses. There were gasps of horror and surprise from among the audience. This gives me all the more reason to be glad that Nishtha used Women's Day as a platform to spread awareness.



After those talks, everyone moved outside to the lawn for speeches, songs, skits, and dancing. Though it was a relatively small gathering of about fifty people, I feel that it was a great success, seeing the smiles on everyone's faces.



Jagori held its event in Shahpur, near where I am teaching these days, an hour and a half away from where I live. It was on a much larger scale, with around five hundred people attending. I rose at the crack of dawn, put on my purple kameez with white salwar, and hopped in a van packed with other Jagori team members all headed for Shahpur. We spent most of the morning setting up the tent area with streamers, tables, a stage, and all sorts of other glitzy yet necessary things. I do admit to spending a lot of time transfixed, watching Manju create this colorful welcome design out of colored saw dust. It was fascinating.



As we were setting up, we were visited by a Brahmin Hindu holy man. He approached Manju and the others at the front of the tent and demanded to know what we were doing. When they explained our women's day celebrations to him, he angrily protested that such feminist things were not needed. If men respect women and act properly, they will become like gods. Likewise, if women respect men and fulfill their roles properly, they will also become like gods. Therefore, feminism isn't needed and is misleading. Or something like that, anyway. From what I can see, Brahministic Hinduism certainly does not allow for women's liberation.

He then went on to insult the Jagori team saying that we were all uneducated and very stupid. To make his point, he pointed to the buttonhole on his vest and asked them what it was called in English. Rightfully, my colleagues claimed it to be a buttonhole. He vehemently disagreed with them, so they brought me over and asked me what I thought it was. I also answered that it was a buttonhole. He began to scream at me saying over and over that that was a huge mistake and that I was stupid too. Shrugging, I admitted that I was only an English teacher from America, so I would not know these things. (Besides the fact that I am something of a seamstress.) Crazy as the man was, I was quite proud of my successfully executed use of sarcasm in Hindi. He eventually declared that it was really called a 'stitching hole' (not true, friends), then lost interest and wandered off.

When the event began, I was a bit nervous at how few people were attending, but slowly and surely, women trickled in to fill our tent to the brim. They came from all over; from Shahpur itself and from distant, remote villages in the mountain, all ready to celebrate being women and support each other in how far they still have to go together, to gain equality and respect.



The four hour even included a number of guest speakers, songs, a skit, and special recognition for women who were recently elected into their village panchayats (five-member councils that govern each village).

Leading up to the elections this last December, Jagori worked at training women and sympathetic men in how to stand for the elections and how to act once they were elected. There is a law stating 33% of all members of the panchayats must be women, and, in alternating years, the pradhan (head of the council) must also be a woman. While this is a great start towards given women a voice, frequently men force their wives to stand for the election and are the real power behind their wife's political seat. Seeking to empower women and actually give them a voice, Jagori trained many women for almost a year leading up to the elections. At the event, Jagori handed out certificates of congratulation to all the people attending that had successfully been elected and had them recite and sign a pledge to work for the interest of women in their villages.



All in all, the even was a huge success, and everyone on the team seems really happy with it. While my Hindi still isn't good enough to understand everything, I was able to follow most of the proceedings and thought it was all very exciting. The empowered energy of the day was exciting, and after it all, we broke out into spontaneous dance. I am very glad that I was able to be a part of this this year, a day celebrated by women all around the world. Though struggles and issues may be different across the globe, we women are united in our quest for equality.