WOMEN AND THEIR EVERYDAY CHALLENGES

CHALLENGES FACED BY YOUNG WOMEN

Women are home-makers. Women are the weaker sex. Women must adhere to certain rules and regulations, even if they are earning. Rules often set by men. The Shriver report of 2014 states 18 issues challenging women in the US. Wonder whether that number has gone up or down. Yes there are plenty of challenges faced by young women in today's world. Though a majority of them are external, some are often internal. The basic mentality of men and women needs a change. The stereotype characterization of the sexes need to be reshuffled.

Discrimination is an awful word and it rules the roost on challenges faced by young women. At home the son is given preference over the daughter. At the workplace, it is verbal and physical sexual abuse; and the gender wage gap is still prevalent in the most powerful country in the world, leave alone the rest of the other countries. Young women go through horrific domestic violence that shatters all their romantic dreams. Break the marriage and it is often the woman who is blamed and targeted, irrespective of the actual cause. Social gatherings can be a nightmare for women if they are not escorted with the right type of guy. Bar hopping is okay for men but can be read as an invitation for rape if women do the same. Many countries have religious gatherings with distinctly marked seating arrangements for men and women.

And yet there are millions of families – across all sectors of the society where a woman is the main breadwinner. Most of the time she is willing to take a back seat and let her husband be in the limelight! In the name of social security a young woman forsakes her ambitions and toes the line so that her dignity is not outraged. Who are the perpetrators? The men! The question is who made the men like that? The society, people who live in the society – that includes men and women.

The importance of a woman's independent opinion is so blatantly obvious during political elections – all over the world. A woman is her own boss inside that small voting cubicle. She presses the button she wants to and not what a male friend or relative asked her to! This is freedom and this is what a woman needs to inculcate inside her every moment of her life at every stage and every situation.

I just read somewhere that “women earn less than men but have more expenses.” Honestly it is hilarious but true only in certain social strata of each country. Th so-called empowerment of women has increased the number of women going out to work and the young delve into consumerism wholeheartedly, as if there is no tomorrow. Blame the ads and media, who know how to lure the young earning females.

Men and women were never meant to be enemies- they are two sides of the same coin made by the great source known as God.