Good morning
everyone.
First of all,
I would like to thank NMKRV College for inviting me to talk as a
woman achiever about empowering oneself on International Women's day.
Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Aranyani and I am a
bharatanatyam dancer. And obviously, as you can see, I am a woman.
I consider
myself to be an empowered woman. I made a career for myself in a very
difficult field, I am financially independent, and within my career,
I am pushing and breaking boundaries whenever I can. I chose a path
that is unconventional, and I have made a mark, however big or small,
in that path. But empowerment does not end with your careers and what
you make of yourself.
It is surely
an important and crucial stepping stone to achieving
self-empowerment, but is that enough? As I began to think about what
I was going to say to all of you, this question brought many, many
different answers. And not all the answers were necessarily connected
to one another directly or leading up to one big conclusive answer.
Empowerment
is something we often seek from society, from our loved ones, from
our peers. But it is not often that we search within ourselves to
become truly empowered. It is certainly true that the people around
you can either help or disrupt your process of empowering yourself.
Loved ones and larger society can make this process either easier or
very much more difficult. But first and foremost, it lies within your
own minds. It has to start there. If your friends and family support
you, it will be easier, and if they don't, you will have the added
task of reasoning, arguing and even fighting with them for your
empowerment, but it has to start with the belief that you deserve
empowerment and the resolve that you will be active enough to seek it
out.
Yes
empowerment is getting a job, being financially independent, and
making something of oneself. Empowerment is success, in some ways.
But on a much more basic level, empowerment is something as straight
forward as being able to have a strong, independent voice as an
individual and to have the freedom in society for that voice to be
heard.
No matter how
many qualifications and degrees you have, how successful you are in
your careers, or how much purchasing power you have, if you don't
strive or even fight to have a voice - in every aspect of your life -
then you are, I'm afraid, not truly empowered.
If others
govern which stream of education you will pursue, and it is not the
path you ideally wanted to choose, you are not truly empowered. The
youth loses artists, intellectuals, athletes, sportsmen, musicians
and dancers everyday, because these career options are sometimes not
considered to be 'financially viable' options. So children are thrown
into law, medical, engineering or business schools, even if they have
a genuine talent for the arts and no interest whatsoever in law,
medicine or business. This is a theft of empowerment. And often it
has grave consequences. Not long ago, a medal-winning teenage swimmer
committed suicide. She was fifteen, and was afraid of failing her
exams. If she had been encouraged to pursue her swimming, she
would've lived in an empowered manner, and we would've gained a
brilliant swimmer. Tragically, society did not empower her and she
was too young to empower herself. I was an above-average student in
school. I did well in subjects like political science, history and
english. I even sought to do a degree in Political science at one
point. But before I even left school, I knew that dance was what I
wanted to do - where my mind wandered and my heart truly lay.
And despite a
degree from St.stephen's college where I stood first in the college
in both my 2nd and 3rd year and a degree from Oxford university, I
decided that it had to be dance that I engaged in for the rest of my
life. Of course, my parents' support in this was crucial, and I
understand that not everyone has parents who would support such a
radical step. But I think I would've pursued this career even if I
didn't have their support to begin with. One of my dancers from Vyuti
left a lucrative corporate job to pursue dance against her parent's
wishes. This is also an example of truly empowering oneself. Today,
she teaches, works with me, and her parents have no choice but to
accept the path she has chosen. Another of them has an MBBS and is
choosing dance over a secure private practice in medicine. Yet
another is a trained paramedic and the youngest is juggling between
her college degree in psychology and dancing with me. These are
empowered dancers, with agency - who've carved their own footprints
into the world of dance, despite easier options.
Moving on -
if someone else governs with whom or how you will spend your
adult life, you are not truly empowered. Whether it is your agency in
choosing who you will spend the rest of your life with, or how you
will spend it - if this agency does not lie with you, then again,
you're letting someone else decide a part of your life in which you
should have a primary say. Because it is your life, and you have to
live it - not just for others, but also yourself. Living for yourself
is a big part of empowering oneself. This does not mean you should
live selfishly, not caring about your surroundings or the people
around you. But it means you have to have the knowledge that
sometimes, pretty often, but not all the time - you have to put
yourself first. Don't become a shadow to a brother, a husband and
later on, a son. Be someone in your own right. I don't think I would
have ever been able to pursue this career, travelling the world on
dance tours and starting my own dance company if I had not been able
to choose who I would spend my life with or how I would spend it. And
if I had not, sometimes, put myself first. I didn't do it by putting
my husband or family down, or by ignoring them or my home. I had to
find a balance, in which I could do both. In other words, I had to
organize my life in a way that I could do both. I could not have done
that if I didn't empower myself to have the agency of deciding my own
fate.
Third, and
this is connected to the second point - there is a lot of pressure in
India for a woman to adapt to changes in her life. Whether its
marriage, or having children or her responsibility to the
household. Many talented and intelligent people have fallen by the
wayside in their careers and passions after they have gotten married
or had children. The household becomes the primary concern of the
wife and mother. Many women do not even think twice before
sacrificing SO MUCH of who they are and who they've been for many
years.
Getting
married or having children does not mean your career has to end, or
that you have to become ONLY a wife or ONLY a mother. You can be many
things at once. Its not easy, but its not impossible! Working class
women do it all the time, under terrible duress and destitute
circumstances, so why can't we - in much better circumstances? One of
my friends danced through her pregnancy, and another won a place in a
dance residency 3 months after her baby was delivered. Becoming a
mother does not mean you have to give everything else up! Neither
does becoming a wife. Husbands are grown men, quite capable of
looking after themselves. Its high time they did, and let you do your
job, as you let them do theirs.
I'm not
saying don't contribute to the household. As a wife and mother, you
do have a responsibility towards it. Quite like a husband and father
has a responsibility to the house and should contribute. But a man
also contributes to society by working and interacting in society.
And so should you. Contribute to society - whether its as a doctor, a
social worker, a dancer, a journalist, a writer, a potter, a chef, an
accountant - whatever. Don't confine your life to the house. This is
the 21st century.
Don't put
yourself down by believing that you cannot contribute to society, and
certainly don't feel you shouldn't be someone because you'll bruise
your partner's ego. Someone once told me - "I want a man who is
more qualified and more successful than me". WHY, is my
question? Why 'more'? This kind of thinking actively disempowers you!
This is not to say that you should not look for a successful and
qualified husband, but why make the comparison? Your success and his
should be independent of one another! In fact, I'll amend that
statement to say that your professional lives should enrich one
another's, you should both be striving and pushing each other to be
better at what you do. There should be a sense of equality and
reciprocity there. One person's empowerment should not become
another's oppression. That is not healthy.
Another very
important means to empowering oneself is to develop the ability to
distinguish good from bad, and right from wrong. This is a rather
underestimated way to empowerment. The ability to receive information
in an informed, educated and just manner is a gravely important
personality trait. To be able to view the situation before you
objectively, looking at the facts and sensitively basing your values,
principles, opinions and beliefs on THAT - rather than being swayed
by misinformation, rumour and prejudice - is a powerful empowerment
tool. Whether it is your stand on social, political or moral issues,
or your views on life in general, the strength and courage to hold
your ground on opinions that are backed by fact and reliable
information, despite the general sway of dominant opinion is
something that can empower you, even in realms of your life that go
beyond your personal life and professional life. In a world where
media, particularly social media is increasingly becoming a weapon to
spread rumour, prejudice and misinformation, the ability to rise
above that because of a fair-minded openness to the truth makes this
tool not just capable of empowering you, but also determining the
KIND of empowered person you will be.
Yet another
crucial empowerment tool is to reject male-dominated media-driven
notions of the idealised female body. Stand up against the
objectification of women in the media, whether it's adverts or
television serials or movies or a Bollywood 'item' number. Reject
these notions of only thin being beautiful or only fair being
beautiful. In a country of diverse ethnicities, it is empowering to
stand up against these often unrealistic and flatly narrow ideas of
beauty. Reject size zero, reject fair and lovely. Fight against that
relative or friend that says you won't be successful if you are heavy
set (I'd say voluptuous) or dark (I'd say dusky). Define your own
idea of beauty and celebrate your body, whatever size shape or skin
colour. That is empowering.
And finally,
if you yourself are the perpetrators of patriarchy, then you can
never be empowered. Without even realizing it, we as women validate
patriarchy by accepting it as custom/ritual/the way things are or by
silently tolerating and even endorsing derogatory stereotypes.
A
mother-in-law demanding dowry at her son's wedding will never be
empowered. Not only that, she is dis-empowering the future
daughter-in-law as well. Dowry is not only a crime, but a practice
that deeply undermines the empowerment of a woman. To the extent that
the undermining begins even before she is born. Female foeticide,
female infanticide, acid attacks on women and harrassment are very
often the result of this oppressive practice. And if women themselves
do not put an end to it, or at least resist it actively themselves,
then how do we even begin to talk about empowerment?
Similarly, a
mother who allows her daughter to fall back in her studies by making
her daughter's marriage the primary concern will never be empowered.
And she robs her daughter of it too. In extreme cases, female family
members don't just rob their daughters of empowerment, but even their
life. Honour killings are a gruesome example of how a woman is
disempowered, and by condoning it, some women actively entrench these
terrible crimes against women and their empowerment.
There are
many other things, that exist in less extreme but much more pervasive
ways - a woman accepting the idea that she is dirty when menstruating
or participating in a mysogynist festival like karva chauth without
understanding the underlying harmful patriarchal ideas there - is a
woman who perpetuates ideas of patriarchy and does not strive towards
empowering oneself. Many women practice this ritual because the older
generation of women have either practiced it or urge them to practice
it. It is also attractive because it's fun to put henna on your
hands, buy bangles and for the women of the house to spend the day
together. I admit, a lot of women do it just for the fun of it, and
don't care about the deeper, darker side of it. But beneath the
surface there is s lack of understanding about the deeply entrenched
patriarchy in this ritual. It asks you to fast for your husbands long
life. And in some ways is linked to the idea that you must do this
because you need him in a way that he doesnt need you. Because who is
fasting for your long life? Why isn't anyone? The fact that this
ritual is not reciprocal makes it inherently unequal. And inequality
and empowerment cannot go hand in hand. Question rituals and
practices before blindly making them a part of the rest of your life.
Why can't you and your partner hope for eachother's long lives by
cooking healthier food together? Or pushing each other to exercise?
Or making sure you both go for regular health check ups?
Similarly,
women who agree with negative sexist stereotypes such as 'women are
bad drivers because they lack spatial intelligence which men have'
(someone actually said this to me), or 'women are emotional, men are
rational' or 'men are meant to be the breadwinners, women are meant
to stay home' or 'dancing is not a career for respectable girls' or
'women shouldn't hang out with men who are not their relatives' (this
harmful stereotype was used as a reason for the gruesome rape of
Jyoti or Nirbhaya) – women who dont stand up to these sterotypes
and advocate it themselves are never going to feel empowered. In
fact, such women actively 'disempower' themselves.
To conclude,
in my opinion, the only way to empower oneself is to have a strong
inner voice, and to express that inner voice in all walks of your
life - professional and personal. And understand your self-worth.
Don't let anyone undermine that. In fact, you have to talk to friends
and loved ones if they are doing it. Because as you can see from the
examples of my life, empowerment is more easily achieved if you have
the support of the people you love. But ultimately, know that only
you have to begin the process of self-empowerment with yourself. You
have to free yourself of over-dependence in your homes, and free
yourself of patriarchal ideas, prejudice and narrow and homoegenizing
notions of beauty. In other words, to begin the process of self
empowerment, you have to free your minds.
Thank you.
