It’s time to re-educate men, says Kiran Bedi

“In spite of all-round development over the years, our society has not been able to shrug off the feudal mentality about women. The birth of a boy is still greeted with sweets while that of a girl with tears. We need to change all that. This is not a mere gender issue, it’s a matter of national importance,” she said.

Participating in the discussion, Magsaysay award winner Dr Kiran Bedi, jointcommissioner (police training), said, “While there has been a need to educate women, of much more urgency is to re-educate men about the need and role of women in our society”.

“It should be made mandatory for all political office-bearers from the panchayat level to Parliament to come out with an annual performance apprisal report listing their work in the field of women education and awareness during the year. These reports then should be published in all main newspapers.

“Let’s go to the President with this request. We can also file a PIL in the Supreme Court in this regard,” she said.

Urging women from all walks of life attending the function to shed the “victim-syndrome”, Brinda Karat, general secretary of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), said we don’t want to be seen as victims. We are not born victims but made victims. A woman needs to be recognised as a woman for her role in the family and in the society.

“Use of terms like `reproductive health’ should be stoppedimmediately as they give very wrong signals. It gives the impression that women are only reproducers and nothing else. These are very western notions about women,” Karat said. Dr Bedi urged the Rotary district 3010 — the organisers of the function titled `Shakti’ — to institute an award for the best performance in the field of women empowerment by any political office-bearer “from the panchayat level to Parliament”.

“You don’t have to worry about the award money as I am sure no politician would be able to win the award because hardly any of them work in that area. So just announce the award and let it go abegging,” Dr Bedi quipped in a lighter vein even as her appeal had an immediate response from a Rotarian announcing a contribution of Rs one lakh towards the institution of the award. Describing the pilot project, the district governor Sanjeev Khanna said the programme would be run by 21 Rotary-organised health centres in Delhi and parts of Haryana.