Aren't women 'empowered' already?

You see us today, walking in our tic-toc heels, smashing stereotypes with the swing of our expensive handbags. You see us today, rolling our eyes at men who expect us to sit at home and be the good wife. You see us today, taking charge, leading companies, driving cars, and posting selfies at the fanciest nightclub while we slay with our girl gang and you ask – Aren’t women empowered already?

Well, our power has come at a cost. It is the result of the strength of our mothers who broke the mould and encouraged us to be our own true selves. It comes from the fight our grandmothers fought, to be able to live a life out of submission. It comes from the generations of brave men and women before us, who raised their voices when women were asked to keep quiet, and who abolished inhumane practices that embraced a Sati and humiliated a Sita. 

The deafening stance of our heels today will not be quietened for it is an applause, the celebration of a cause. The power cruising through our veins today, will not be silenced by saying it’s over. You are now empowered. The job is now done. It’s your day in the sun. Because even today there are women, like us, struggling in a marriage of not love, but lust. These women like us, selling their bodies for dust, are looking up to us. Women struggling to find a voice that doesn’t quiver under the roar of a man’s. Women waiting to wake up to the sound of birds than the wails of a drunken husband. Women searching for peace in the bus rides as their children sleep in a pile, women wrestling with the thought of running away from homes hostile, women battling every day as the world moves on ignoring their cries, a world in denial.

Empowered.

We will be empowered when no woman fears smiling at a stranger. We will be empowered when men don’t own us like property, but respect us as an equal. We will be empowered when the birth of a daughter is as joyous an occasion as that of a son. We will be empowered, when we can serve a greater purpose, that just the ego of a male human.

Till then, stop asking us dumb questions.

Vedangi Dandwate (Author)