Women and Reservations

Is the 30% reservation (in universities/ politics) a favor to women?

It is not.

Right to education, right to inheritance, rights to family name, right to performing the parents’ last rites, right to freedom, public spaces, traveling, right to self-reliance, right to second chances in life, remarriage, parental love, even right to be born have all been reserved for men for centuries. 

Politics, governance, and lawmaking are also reserved for men. 

Women even today, are discouraged from taking their careers too seriously, career for women is seen as an option (and Getting and Staying Married as of the goal). So the playing field is not level.

We need a society where women are valued by their families and that is not possible until they stop being ‘liabilities’ – which is not possible until they are provided equal and fair opportunities. 

Is it stupid to demand equality where physical labor is involved? A lot of women are capable of more stamina than men, but the statistics proving the contrary are larger.

 One should be paid for the amount of work done not for one’s physical strength, because no two men (or women) are equally strong, and a stronger worker may or may not work more.

Equal pay for equal work is fair. Women are generally not paid as much for the same amount of work. Even today it is believed that a man has to support his family so he should be better paid.

If a woman demands equality, she should behave exactly like a male.

Being equal means having an equal right to justice, opportunities, and happiness.

Equality does not mean some people need to behave like other people. And all men (or all women) are not alike either. Equality would mean men and women being able to be themselves – sometimes they might want to do some things that were earlier ‘reserved for men’.

Equality also means men have an equal right to enjoy cooking, caring for family, raising children, crying or dancing. It does not mean they have to behave exactly like women to be treated as equals.

Also, consider, does a Chinese, a Maharashtrian, a Malayali, a Canadian, an Ethiopian or a Goan man behave exactly alike? But everybody is and should be equal in the eyes of the law and society.