With recent news about rapes and how the ruling has been mostly against the victim, it has got me to believe that male dominance may be weakening, but it’s not gone! Yes, you read it right! We are still very much a patriarchic society! Although the Nepali government has announced that both the genders have equal rights, this is something that’s yet to be implemented. Nepali women still face the same problem that women in most developed countries have managed to rid themselves of- Male dominance!

When a women is raped who’s blamed? The woman itself and her way of dressing! If we have adopted the fashion sense from developed countries, why are we so behind on adapting other better things from the western cultures? Females need to be respected. We are not requesting anymore, we are demanding respect!

Patriarchy is traditionally a characteristic of an agrarian society. Agricultural civilizations were basically run by men, they were the ones who hunted and gathered food for the family and were also the ones that controlled the social, cultural and political norm. Females had little or no say in these matters.  With time, these agricultural societies prospered, however the status of women deteriorated from its initial level. Individual families were established on a patriarchal basis, with the man of the family making the key decisions, and with humble obedience owed to this male authority.

Patriarchy raises important questions about women themselves. Many women internalized the culture of patriarchy, holding that it was their job to obey and to serve men and accepting arguments that their aptitudes were inferior to those of men however, these things aren’t true!

Even though we have adopted a lot of things from the western culture, such as clothing and other, we still have a lot to learn from them. There are still places in our country where girls are not sent to school and even if they are, they are not sent to the same school their brothers attend. Instead of sending them to school the female is often used as domestic help, when they grow up they aren’t allowed to choose a partner for themselves and even worst, procedure called amniocentesis(also referred to as amniotic fluid test or AFT) is being misused to determine the gender of a fetus in order to abort it if female -- is this even legal?

How can we forget dowry? Why is a girl supposed to give a payment to get married? Why? Marriage is no lottery! Dowry is a social dangerous evil and we must end it! Many women have been physically and mentally tortured by their in-laws due to the lack of dowry. Many have even been killed. This system basically makes the mockery out of gender equality!

Women are as intelligent and smart as men are so why the discrimination? They are not inferior to men in any way, but traditional religious practices, formed over time by and for men in control of religion, discounts women's rights. The difference between male and female exists only in our minds and we have got to change the way we perceive both these genders. A woman wasn’t put on this earth to act as per the orders of a man in a similar way; a man wasn’t put on earth to give orders to a woman. A woman has the rights to live her life in her own terms as much as a man does.

Now that we have entered an era of scientific and technical revolution let’s not be bound by traditional thought. I don't think it's time to discriminate between men and women anymore.

It is not a curse to be born as a woman or a man, but it is our great fortune to be born as humans. Is it then reasonable to waste away this life in wrangling about non-existent gender differences?
Let's change our concepts and practices to provide equal rights for females. Say yes to women power!