Women Empowerment: Myth vs Reality

सत्यम् ब्रूयात् प्रियम् ब्रूयात् न ब्रूयात् सत्यमप्रियम् | 

प्रियम् नानृतं ब्रूयात् एष धर्मः सनातनः ||

satyam bruyat priyam bruyat na bruyat satyam apriyam

priyam ca nanrutam bruyat esha dharmah sanatanah

Speak truth in such a way that it should be pleasing to others. Never speak truth, which is unpleasant to others. Never speak untruth, which might be pleasant. This is the path of eternal morality, sanatana dharma.

Real empowerment happens only by two ways

1.Devotion

2.Sense of Service

It is a well considered myth that only working women are more empowered than housewife’s.

A women who takes care of her husband and children with devotion are really more empowered to make correct decisions than a women who may be a chairperson of any organization but works without any devotion.

Real power does not come through authority,it comes through service.

Empowerment as per Hindu religious texts is not gained by holding any authorized position,it happens by sense of service that one offers.

In ancient India, even now in some places,it is the man who occupies the head of the family position and the  women is used to listening to him,this has often been misconstructed as slavery by the western historians who did come to India.Even in this so called bondage of the wife,it was received by her with an unsaid , untold joy and love,though the so called intellectuals of today have called it patriarchical, antiwomen and antisocial.

India has never been antiwomen since ancient ages.

It always respected women.Mathrudevobhava -  Treat your mother as god.This has been well reflected in the religious preaching’s of great saints like Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Sankaracharya.  Though the western culture taught otherwise.

“Women need to be treated as children and protected” – this is what the Manusmriti, an ancient Hindu text states.

Today this is often misrepresented as lack of freedom,bondage,slavery by the so called intellectual,modern,westernized,liberal women activists.

P.S.- I am not a Hindu extremist.