International Women's Day: 'Make men receptive to independent women'

Amritsar, March 8

At a special session dedicated to women, Majha House invited writers Meghna Pant, Kiran Manral, Sabin Iqbal and Shinie Anthony to talk about the perception of abuse and the trauma that comes with it.

Meghna’s new book ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ was the centre of the discussion. Preeti Gill, founder, Majha House, said hosting this particular session was Majha House’s modest effort to honour and salute the spirit of womanhood, who have endured and battled countless traumas and pains over the years and yet come out shining through the ordeal. “All our writers today are going to talk about different types of abuse a woman can experience in a marriage,” she said. Beginning the conversation, Meghna Pant said, “When we usually talk about abuse, we only focus on physical abuse but there’s financial, emotional and verbal abuse as well. It’s just that signs of domestic violence are more obvious. It might take women to understand years to realise that she is being abused.”

Speaking candidly about the different feelings a woman in a failing marriage goes through, Meghna said in spite of the fact that she was raised as an independent woman, she stayed in a bad marriage for five years and it took her a lot of time to get out of the abusive relationship and even more to write it all down. “Women are also expected to conform to the stereotype of perfection which is deeply ingrained in them right from childhood and we all try. We must understand that we are all flawed and have to live with our imperfections,” she said.

Sabin Iqbal, in his turn, said his works focus on women, who are left behind at home, tending to in-laws while their husbands work abroad. Things have changed now but back in the 70s, this practice was rampant and this is what I have talked about at large. “The role of a woman in these circumstances is hardly more than that of a glorified maid, who waits for her husband to return for a short time and then she has the ‘duty’ to make him happy for his stay,” he said.

Talking about women in different roles and different perceptions of a divorced man and woman in our society, Kiran Manral said, “I feel that divorced men get over the trauma much more easily and with less scars than women. Another issue I have is that when men remarry they tend to look for women much younger than themselves and they succeed too. But women do not have this choice and are considered fortunate if they get remarried,” she opined.

Unified in their conclusion, they proposed two basic solutions to empower women truly. “Women must be made independent in every way and aware too and men should be raised to be more supportive for their wives.’