Jaipur: Women need to fight for their rights and should not expect to get them without struggle, an all women panel said here at the Jaipur Literature Festival today during a session to discuss gender roles, restrictions and definition.
“You have to fight to achieve what you deserve. Women must struggle to get their dues from society,” Preeta Bhragava, the first woman to be Jail Superintendent of Rajasthan and also a poet said here today.
Echoing the same sentiment, famous writer Lata Sharma urged women to snatch their rights from society which has conditioned everyone, including women, to accept the status quo of women being inferior to man.
“Rights are not given to anyone just like that. You have to fight and snatch your rights,” Sharma whose work has been translated into many languages said while addressing a session titled “Stree Ho Kar Sawal Karti Ho? – Women’s Voices, Women’s Questions” at the Jaipur Literature Festival here today.
The panel, moderated by fiction writer Dushyant, observed that women are the only oppressed community which lives in an intimately close relationship with their oppressors.
“Women have been oppressed since centuries and the conditioning of society is such that everyone accepts it. Women are the only oppressed group which continues to live with their oppressors,” he said.
“Women need to realise their own power and then only the society as will realise it,” said Bharagava.
Social activist Sushila Shivran questioned the right of men and society to ask women what to wear and do.
“Why are men afraid of women and ask them what to do and wear. People should think about their mindset rather than asking others,” Shivran said.