Women Empowerment lessons from movie Dangal

“Maari chhoriyan  chhoron se kam hai ke”

Translated in english it means – ” Are my girls any less than boys?

What a line. If one line can transform lives, then it has to be this line which summarizes the core of this inspiring story. It is this belief of Mahavir Singh Phogat, the erstwhile wrestler that changes the destiny of phogat daughters and of future generations of women wrestlers. This is such a powerful line and shows through movie the potential of outcomes when girls are believed to be equal to boys. The movie Dangal which is a biopic on women wrestling champions -Geeta and Babita Phogat is special because it depicts an inspiring journey of a father and his girls who dare to dream and make that dream come true even when all adds were stacked up against them.

Odd # 1 Family lives in  socially regressive Haryana infamous for skewed sex ratio, female feticide and khaps.

Odd # 2 Lower middle class family with limited resources and more vulnerable to societal pressure. ” What people will say” matters in that world.

Odd # 3 Choosing a uncoventional career which is unfavorable to women – wrestling. Traditionally wrestling has been a male domain and when you imagine a wrestler, you imagine a man. It was akin to imagining the unimaginable, doing the undoable.

Geeta won gold at commonwealth games and has been the first woman wrestler from India to qualify in Olympics. The legendary story of Mahavir Phogat making wrestling champions out of his daughters is told through a high-profile motion picture – Dangal and has also many lessons for women empowerment. Let’s take a look at them:

Lesson # 1  Children’s(specially girls) destiny lies in hands of parents to a larger extent.

While it is true everywhere and for all children, this is particularly true for Girls in India specially in small towns, in regressive societies and lower socioeconomic families. The eureka moment was when the father realises that his daughters have potential and the gender doesn’t matter in fulfilling his dream of making his child an international wrestling champion. What matters is that parents believe in gender equality and provide girls equal opportunities and choices. It was a girl who was being married off at young age and was unhappy about it makes young Geeta and Babita see that how lucky they are to have a father like Mahavir who has not thrown them into life of early marriage/domesticity and is giving them a shot at life same as any son would have got. Indeed if it was not for a social barriers breaking father like Mahavir Singh Phogat, Geeta and Babita’s destinies would have been same as other girls of their age, place and time. There would have been neither the inspiring story nor the movie to write about.

Lesson# 2 Social Barriers, Stereotypes and glass ceilings have to be broken once and they remain broken for all.

While the movie mainly covered the journey of Geeta’s making into a wrestling champion and it mirrors the life of similar other women wrestlers. Why Geeta’s story is significant because it was she and with her Mahavir Phogat who breaks first time the social barriers  and gender stereotypes.  On every step of the journey , a stereotype or social barrier was broken and prevailing rulebook was challenged :

• Girls starting physical training to be wrestler.
• Girls shunning traditional wear for boys clothes – shorts and Tee
• Girls cutting the long hair for boy cut. Even mother cried here.
• Cooking non vegetarian food in a vegetarian household. Mother too resisted this.
• Wrestling with boys in dangal.
• Mocked by school friends, neighbors, sports officials and who not.

When Babita or other girls would have gone through same path, it must have been somewhat easier for them as the glass ceiling was already broken and rule book already changed. It was now under imagination that a girl can also be a wrestler. That’s why it is so important for any glass ceilings/ barriers/stereotypes to be broken first time as it paves the way for others who would walk the same path. Somebody has to break the social barriers and barriers remain broken for all. It not only serves the person breaking it but indirectly empowers all who come after them and that’s why their stories are celebrated and lauded.

Lesson # 3  Conviction. Focus on goals. Self Belief. Hard work. Sacrifices & trade-offs.

Evergreen recipe for success. Father’s conviction in his own dreams and in turning that dream into reality led to convictions of all around him, mother and daughters themselves. There were also sacrifices made. The phogat girls didn’t have normal childhood or any other regular pleasures of children of their age in pursuit of a larger goal in life.

Lesson # 4 Success changes everyone’s negative attitude into positive

The same society which was mocking the phogat family starts respecting them and welcomes the champion Geeta like a hero and she becomes pride of her village. Even though society and others will discourage girls from pursuing their dreams or any unconventional career but if you achieve success, fame and money, the same people will not only accept you but also respect you. Success changes people’s perspectives and persepctives matter.

Real Mahavir Singh Phogat with his girls and medals. Source: Rediff.com

Night before the final bout of commonwealth games, father tells Geeta that this fight is not only with opponent but with the ” mindset” that girls are not equal to boys and this mindset is root cause for gender inequality, denying girls opportunities to life, career and choices. Cheers to Geeta who proved his father’s belief in her right but she couldn’t have done if it had not been for his father, the real hero of this story, Mahavir Singh Phogat- a brave man, an inspiring father and a social barriers shattering figure not only for his daughters but for all young girls and their parents in this country. Salute to him for believing that “maari chhoriyan chhoro se kam hain ke”.

The pursuit of beauty

How important is being beautiful to you? Is it directly linked to your self-esteem and self-confidence? Does it matter to you if others find you good-looking or not? Do you seek appreciation and approval from others on your physical appearance? Well, all these questions might seem trivial to most of men but not to most of women. From a girl next door to a celebrity, every women would have experienced doubts concerning her looks at some point in her life. The perceived beauty of self has tremendous impact on self-image and confidence level. As per a recent research, a child as young as 3 years starts questioning if she is pretty or ugly.

The whole beauty business starts early

This starts to show up even in children as young as 3. You go to any children’s birthday party and you would find how starkly different boys and girls are dressed. Girls will be dressed in all party wear dressy frocks with all accessories and frills. Boys would be in simple casual clothes such as tee-shirt and jeans. There is pressure and expectations on mothers of little girls to dress up their daughters. I agree that mothers get to play dressing up dolls game in real and it could be fun but the larger point is that we are setting expectation and norm for the young minds to follow as far as beauty is concerned. Sometimes children don’t want to dress up and we kind of force them to wear the heavy dresses with frills and all just to conform to the unofficially set dress code for girls.  It should also be perfectly okay for a girl to go to a birthday party in simple casual clothes like boys. By letting girls choose what they want to wear would not only teach them to be independent in their decision-making but also teach them to break free from gender and beauty stereotypes.

The created need of women to look beautiful and flawless

The whole cosmetic Industry is thriving on creating and sustaining need of women to look beautiful. I have always wondered why was being beautiful thrust upon women and not men in the same way. A man takes bath, wears ironed clothes, combs his hair, puts on a perfume and he is ready. A woman in addition to above things a man does goes on painting her face with all sort of chemicals and then she is ready. Women are bombarded with advertisements of beauty enhancing products such as  pimple removing creams, whitening creams, weight loss pills, anti ageing creams and so on. One constant running theme of such ads is that by using such products for example a pimple removing cream or skin whitening cream, a girl is shown achieving her goals which stereotypically are getting attention of boys and winning beauty pageants. What about the other goals girls may have such as topping an exam, getting a job, winning a game, excelling in career? Can these ads show that through use of cosmetic products one can achieve such goals? No, they can’t because success is not skin deep, it takes consistent hard work over the years, grit and strength of character to achieve long-term success and definitely you can’t show these virtues being built with a skin whitening cream. The whole industry is misleading the young minds and messing up their value system. I have always felt parents have such significant influence on holistic development of children as it is the parents who can guard the young impressionable minds from getting misguided. Parents should focus not only on ensuring measurable performance in studies or sports but also on ensuring that children develop right attitude, values and perspectives.

Source:http://beautybyontd.livejournal.com/

Unrealistic beauty standards to which women are subjected

My point is the difference of expectations and set standards for women and men when it comes to grooming and looking good. The attention to dress and make up can serve as distraction from a focus on studies or job at hand due to the absurd beauty standards to which women are disproportionately subjected. Society tends to objectify women with beauty classified as the greatest asset for a woman. Sometimes having physical beauty can be a hindrance in letting people see your talent beyond the appearance. You come across articles such as 10 most beautiful female IPS/IAS officers. Even cracking one of the most prestigious and toughest exam  does not let women to break free from age-old shackles of beauty defining a woman.

Myth of flawless and perfect beauty

Women can follow their pursuit of flawless beauty and glamour but one must understand that flawless beauty itself is a myth. When we think of beauty, we think of the celebrities donning the fashion and beauty magazines,  looking beautiful and groomed all the time. What we might not realize is that  flawless looks on magazines cover is a result of a rigorous schedule of diet and exercise, hours of make-up, teams of fashion stylists and make-up experts and on top of everything the use of technology such as Photoshop . Actress Sonam Kapoor busted the myth of flawless beauty in a recent article. I suggest every girl to read it. As per the article, Flawlessness is dangerous and high budget myth and its time we shattered it. Any expectations of flawless beauty from oneself and others is unsustainable and damaging in long run.

Pertinent questions women must ask 

Why is it responsibility and duty of every woman to look beautiful all the time? Why is being beautiful so important for being a woman. Why can’t we ourselves and others around us accept us as we are without any makeup and beauty procedures done, the way we accept men. Why looking good has become part of feeling good and confident. What changes before makeup and after make-up? You are the same person with same skill-sets.  Through thousands of years, this enormous responsibility of being beautiful has forced women to voluntarily do it on their own. Women’s self-confidence is depending on being beautiful which is dependent on use of cosmetic products and all the artificial procedures done to their body. Why nobody tells them that you don’t need to do anything to look beautiful, you are beautiful as you are. Having a kind and gentle heart is what makes you beautiful.  Why as handsome as it does is not used for women? Why not as beautiful as she does?

A radiant and genuine smile is the makeup which would make one look beautiful always. When I see a woman without makeup and with a confident smile, I respect her for I know she has freed herself from this responsibility of being beautiful all the time. She knows who she is and doesn’t need chemicals applied on her face and procedures done on her body to feel good about herself. We need more of such women!

Role Model for Women : Hillary Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton has many firsts to her name beside being the first woman nominee in a US presidential election. Hillary has been the first woman to become a partner at Rose Law firm in 1979 and first first lady to have a professional career. Hillary has been a role model in making for long and she has been promoting women’s equality and women’s rights at various forums. At UN conference in Beijing in 1995, she spoke the now famous quote “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights”.Hillary also had to go through the same life cycles like any other working woman. Adjusting and changing jobs or relocating places after getting married, slowing down to look after young child and putting your own career and ambitions on hold to support an ambitious husband’s rising career. Hillary has done it all. Most of working women go through these stages and but very few are able to realize their full potential as evident in scant numbers of women occupying top offices in any stream. Very few women are able to break those hardest and highest glass ceilings and storm into the boardrooms or topmost offices. Hillary has done it and women across the world can learn some very valuable lessons from her life journey.

It is never too late

Woman have to make compromises in their balancing act between family and career responsibilities. Many a times, a woman takes a break or if lucky, keeps the job but intentionally slows down her career progression by refusing opportunities which would create a conflict in her personal life. This conflict could also push a woman to take the hardest decision of choosing between career and family because both can’t exist together. After a long break , many women think that it is too late to go back to work or they are too old to go back to study to re-skill and advance their careers.

Hillary has proved that it is never too late to pursue your dreams. Hillary is running for US presidency at an age when most people are retired and living a relaxed life. She knows she is not at peak of her physical strength and age is on wrong side but this doesn’t deter her. You have one life and it is never too late if you are ready to work hard to fulfill your dreams and aspirations.

The importance of self belief

To believe in yourself and to dare to dream are at heart of many success stories. Women need to have the courage and determination to keep pursuing their aspirations and to not give up. It needs immense self belief, hard work and emotional strength to keep going on through everything life throws at you and not give up on your career aspirations. Hillary has reinforced that what matters most is to believe in yourself when it feels that no one does. World is full of doubters and skeptics but the most important thing is to never doubt your own capability and to have that infinite reservoir of self-confidence to pull you out of any crisis in life.

To not out yourself from the race.

This is one of key reasons why many women are not there in top jobs in corporate or elsewhere. Before anyone does, women out themselves from the race. Somewhere the prejudice that women are somewhat less capable than men has affected women’s self belief and women deny themselves those top jobs by choosing to not go for it. There aren’t many women in boardrooms or in presidential race primarily because very few women even dare to dream to reach that level. It is much more complex and harder to explain why it is so but the truth is that there are very few women who are even in race for these top jobs. To increase the number of women in top jobs, we first have to make sure that women don’t defeat themselves by not even taking part in the race.

Perseverance is the key. 

Never give up.It is one virtue which outdoes everything else. Sometimes just not quitting and hanging in there can lead to outstanding results in long-term. Many thought Hillary’s career was over long time back. She has not let many setbacks such as past failures, public humiliation at husband’s scandal and personal attacks on her looks, stamina, age, integrity affect her pursuit of her goal. For a working woman, challenges come in all forms such as illness of children, spouse’s career needs, inadequate family support system, societal judgements and self doubts. Women have to be relentless and keep moving forward .The march can be slower at times but if you keep walking  you would reach your goal one day. Never ever give up on your dreams.

 If Hillary is elected to be the first woman president of United States in country’s history of 240 years, she would shatter the toughest and highest glass ceiling. She would not only earn her place in history but also inspire generations of young girls in America and the world beyond.

 # Role Models for Women Series

Can a bad performance at Olympics be a good thing?

The top achievers at Rio Olympics – All women

Yes , it might be for women in India. Rio Olympics 2016 just concluded with a medal tally of 2 for India that too after a long agonising wait.  Rio Olympics has seen the largest Indian contingent consisting of 118 sports persons accompanied by as high expectations. After all Olympics is the biggest show on earth. It might just be a fact that the only medals in India’s tally have been won by WOMEN. It couldn’t have been more ironical as India’s supposed pride and honour was saved by 2 women.

India is a country which yearns for a male child. India is a country which struggles with female feticide and a skewed sex ratio of 943 females per 1000 males. India is a country where many girls are killed before being born, if born, many are subjected to lifelong discrimination which can come in many forms, varying from denied access to nutrition, medical care to a denied promotion in a job. In a country where birth of a girl is not celebrated as equally as birth of a boy because girls are perceived as burden to the family and boys as the ones who would bring pride and money to the family.

Instead it has been 2 girls who brought pride to the country, fame and monetary rewards to their families. It is a humbling moment for Indian patriarchal society. Sakshi and sindhu’s victories haves captured the imagination of this nation. It is a powerful moment of realization of something big, a fact that nobody took notice of – fact that even girls can do what boys can do and here something girls have done which even boys couldn’t do. It is a powerful and game changing realization. Country is waking to realization of what could happen if women in India are given access to equal if not better opportunities than men. It’s a moment of reckoning for the unrealized potential of women in India.

How many potential medallist like sakshi and sindhu have been killed even before being born, how many potential medallists are being stopped from realizing their potential by denying these young girls equal access to nutrition, education and freedom to make crucial choices in life such as career and marriage.  Having a no choice in  life altering decisions such as marriage is a major contributor to unfulfilled dreams of millions of girls in India.  Every dream like a sapling requires nurture, support, and care to bloom and become a reality.

It is also a moment to realize the crucial role parents play in shaping life of  a young girl. Sakshi and sindhu couldn’t have done it without support of their parents. The parents have done a laudable job for giving wings to their daughter’s dreams. Parents are the first gatekeepers of children’s dreams and aspirations. No child can achieve his or her potential if not supported and encouraged by parents.

My heart swells with pride for achievement of sakshi and sindhu. As a women in India you would face the discrimination in some form or another even if you are of the luckier lot. It might not be as severe as having no access to nutrition or education but nonetheless it is still there and there is no escaping from it.

To me the roots of all discrimination are in the way society looks at women in India. The lack of trust in a women’s capabilities and potential. If state of women in this country has to improve, this perspective has to change. And for it to change, women have to be seen as adding value to themselves, families, country in intangible outcomes like pride as well as in tangible outcomes like money, job, rewards.

Cash rewards worth 3 crore and 10 crore have been announced for sakshi and sindhu respectively. There is immense future potential of income from advertisement deals, endorsement and similar things. These facts need to be highlighted as much as possible because this would open the eyes of people who do not see girls as future source of monetary gains to the family. Society might start seeing girls as valuable as boys as far as economic gains are concerned.

For all those young girls who watched the Olympics and who have interest in sports, Sakshi, Sindhu, Dipa, Lalita are the women role models Indian badly needs. These extraordinary sports women have inspired a generation of Indian girls who have set eyes on bringing many more medals to India in coming Olympics.

Girls have a stronger case to make to fend off hurdles put by society and culture when they set out to realize their potential. Winning only 2 medals and that too by women might turn out to be a good thing in long run for state of women in India. The biggest good which can come out of it might be change in belief that after all women have equal potential and can sometimes bring more results than men given their wings are not trimmed before they are ready to fly.

Rio Olympics 2016 might turn out to be an inflection point for women in India. Keeping my fingers crossed!

You can watch an inspiring poem by Prasoon Joshi on achievement of Indian girls in Rio.He dedicates this poem to the girl child.

 

The New Role Models for Women in India – Sakshi & Sindhu

The New Role Models for Women in India

Rio olympics 2016 gave us not only 2 medals but also 2 bright shinning women role models to inspire a generation of young girls in India. To make them believe that they can do it too. Women in India badly need such role models. Role models are inspiring , they are somebody you can relate to, somebody you can look up to. The success of saskhi and sindhu has captured the imagination of millions of young girls.

My hope and guess is that sakshi’s and sindhu’s feat at Rio would have captured imagination of a generation of parents of young girls as well. Parents are the launchpads girls need to launch their ambitions and fly high. Parents are the first gatekeepers of children’s dreams and aspirations. In fact many a times, it is the grit and belief of a parent in talent of child which makes their dream a reality. Behind every successful child or a young adult, stands a firm mother or father or both.

The importance of role models is in the logic of human mind. You want proof of something to believe it. Success of role models is the proof that it is achievable. Sakshi and Sindhu are national icons, sort of celebrity everyone knows but not everyone would know them personally. In my opinion, closer are role models to you, stronger is impact of their success on you. For example if your cousin is a successful state level swimmer and you aspire to be a swimmer, you would relate totally with your cousin as you share similar background and her success is a solid proof that its doable. Your mind knows if she could do it , you could do it too. Having a role model known personally also helps more as you have direct access to the guidance, expertise and tips.

Nonetheless, till we have a successful women role model in our family or neighbourhood, lets celebrate and get inspired by the success of sakshi and sindhu. Sakshi and sindhu should realize that millions of hopeful eyes are looking up to them, ears are tuned to hear what they have to say. They should share their experiences, struggles and how they overcame those struggles. They should share details of their journey right from childhood to the olympic podium. They should tell what inspired them and what got them going  day after day, year after year. Their stories and words would inspire a generation of girls and tomorrow we would have many more saskhi’s and sindhu’s who would go on to inspire another generation. This chain of role models inspiring millions is what would help India in reaching its own potential when it comes to Olympics and more importantly would help young girls and women in India realize their potential and fulfill their dreams.