বাংলায় পড়ুন
While we all go gung-ho about celebrating 8th March as Women’s Day, let us take a step back and ask ourselves: has our outlook towards women changed? Surely, there would be exceptions in all walks of life. But having said that, there are innumerable occasions where, in our world, a man is considered confident while a woman is deemed arrogant. While a man is considered assertive, a woman is considered aggressive. A man can be strategic, but a woman is termed manipulative. Based on sex, the world makes these assumptions. And this is where let us make a difference this Women’s Day.
Jiyo Bangla would like to salute our very own Kolkata women who have broken conventions and have shown our society that women can be assertive, confident, bold, and display qualities of a true leader, just like a man can. These Kolkata women come from a variety of professions and a few examples would help us understand what progress we have made. Let us take the example of Taniya Sanyal, the first woman firefighter in the Indian aviation industry. Not many women would even dream of taking up such a profession. Another example is Tishya, Kolkata’s very first woman DJ. According to her, event managers and club managers have always been skeptical about hiring woman DJs, the common perception is that they would just be eye candies. It has been a difficult journey for Tishya, but she has turned things around and is now one of the most successful DJs in the city.
Let us now look at the first woman bartender that Kolkata has seen, Tsalila Sangtam. She mentions how the perception is different here in India and more so in Kolkata where she has now been promoted to the position of a bar captain. She agrees that perceptions are slowly changing, and people are accepting the fact that a woman will serve and mix drinks at a bar. A similar experience was initially faced by Modhura Pailt, cinematographer. She was the only girl studying cinematography across three batches in her film school. Cinematography is a job requiring extreme physical effort. The common perception was what would a girl do in such a profession. Modhura faced similar jibes but she was determined not to allow her physical disadvantage to be viewed as weakness.
The above scenarios show us that times are changing. And this woman’s day would be a great start to breaking the conventional perceptions and truly creating a society which respects women and upholds gender equality.
