Raising a daughter

I have never believed in over simplistic equalizations of of gender. Or of anything for that matter. It is an unequal asymmetric imperfect and consistently inconsistent world. And I love it.

Perhaps I would have thought differently if I had been born in the dark ages or sold as a slave or something ugly. But I have not. 

Being raised in Bengal to high thinking parents has innate advantages and living in a small town did not affect this even remotely. 

Burn the bra? No way José! The narcissist in me loves all things exquisitely feminine and I revel in being female. I love being offered seats, I love chivalrous men opening doors for me, and I love politeness and good manners. I do not think these will ever be unfashionable or undesirable.

I am raising a girl child of the next generation. I had once realized that the only thing that troubled me was isolation or loneliness. The world was getting progressively lonelier. Loneliness makes a person vulnerable and if I had to raise a strong woman, I would have to raise someone who was not troubled by aloneness. Someone who was at peace within. I wrote this on her 9th birthday. 

"What do I wish for my daughter's future?

I wish and pray with all my heart that she learns to live within her silence. To embrace the solitude which is part of every single person's life. We are all, islands of solitude. Not all of us have learnt to live within this silence. I wish for my child to be able to embrace this quietness and imbibe peace and strength from it. Let it not be a cacophonic silence. Let it not be a deafening silence filled with disquietude and self-doubt. Let it be a serene solitude, such that any one looks at her face and sees the face of calm."

New womanhood? Empowered, smart multitaskers who are confident of themselves and their sexuality without need to prove or protest.

I do believe self-defense classes should be made a compulsory part of the curriculum in every country so that never again does a girl or a woman have to worry about being attacked physically by men. Empowerment has to be physical too.
© Sucheta Sanyal Roy / September 2014

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