By Krishna Jha 

 

 

“YOU bear the seed, flower and fruit… You who never cease to Repair life…” It was Luce Irigaray, an Italian poetess, and author, yearning to be one, in completion, separate from the other. Her tenderness is there, in suffering, in happiness, she breaks the shackles and emerges as her own self, that of a woman, not the other half. March 8, the Day marked for women, has arrived. It makes her realise that battles are still not concluded, they have taken up only new forms. Her constitutional rights, and also freedom are under threat. She has to live in a world where those who commit sacrilege are celebrated and her own miseries go unnoticed. We still have our Bilkis, Jahira, the girl in Hathras, the eight-year-old from Kathua. The list is long. But it is also the day when womankind’s achievements are commemorated. It has been the day when she rose and opposed the injustices showered on her since labour was divided in the society. As the instruments of production became heavier, woman with her frail built, was barred from the mainstream production. As the tools produced more than was needed, each man, physically stronger than woman, became the master and issue of inheritance emerged. Woman became slave, kept under four walls, looking up at him, carrying for him his successor.

 

Process remained the same with few shades of variations that came with the context they lived. In 2023, the theme of International woman’s day was defined as ‘Embrace Equity’. It was a call to Governments and world leaders to end inequality among man and woman, and to provide equity. It was in 1911, that in an international conference of women it was decided to struggle for promoting equal rights including women’s suffrage. All their lives, mostly ignorant of their splendour, women have been called names whenever they wanted to avert the beaten path. Mary Wollstonecraft who demanded suffrage for women in England was called “filthy witch”, a commonly used weapon to keep her away from demanding her political liberty. They also called another, “A hyena in petticoats”, while the referred woman was written about as having exceptionally pure and exalted character. As late as in 1810, at least forty six years after industrial revolution when the world was in transition, arriving at a new stage overcoming feudal pangs, Sydney Smith wrote his most brilliant pieces in defence of education for women. But it had hardly influenced the system.

 

Even after a century, in 1903, Madam Curie (Marie Skolodowska-Curie, a Polish French physicist and also chemist) was denied Nobel prize since she was a woman, though it was in her name, and later was given jointly with her husband Pierre Curie. In fact, the phenomenon of women struggling against injustice is neither sudden nor new. Rebellion had kept simmering, though organised expression was a later development. Their issues were only part of the Reform Movement. The expression of rebellion was marked when any one committed suicide. It was after the October revolution in 1917 when initiatives were taken to build a new society led by Com Lenin. While bringing the 1926 Soviet Family Code, it was believed that only with true monogamy and true family unity, women could get liberated. While discussing the issues following the Family Code, some peasant women reacted, “We are still in dark as we were enslaved for centuries.” They wanted explanation in simple and clear words. They understood that liberty for woman was not simply few changes at work or home, they needed complete liberty as a human being and live as responsible member of the society. They demanded after the liberating effect of revolution, that the transition towards socialism had also the task of reorganising production.

 

The common theme was the freedom from drudgery at home. It was also part of the debate that it should be collectivised with communal kitchen and other domestic jobs. The production in the society needed women too as men. Lenin emphasised effect of work on women’s consciousness. He was trying to discover a world of new, active and public work in place of isolation and fatalism of the narrow limits of the family. It was also realised by the economists who calculated the labour and time women spent in housekeeping and realised that only with complete freedom from housework, women could offer their energy and capacity to build the socialist economy faster and meet material preconditions. By this time Lenin was no more. Kollontai, one of the leaders of communist movement in Russia, was of opinion that the family was a cultural institution which maintained the old values of subordination and authoritarianism. If the system continued in the same way, social emancipation for women would not be achieved. It was in the interest of the class divided society to keep woman as a slave while man has to be the one to bear the entire burden of supporting the family and none of the two could afford to stand against the system as it could be at the price of the family itself. It proved to be the best weapon to stifle the proletarian attempts towards gaining liberty. (IPA)