Women's Day

The Tamil television channels are today screaming about the "International Women's Day" and about how women have changed, and are changing themselves and the future. Ok, the need for the change is understood and so is the fact that people are changing. But is this change enough? Have we really attained a state where women are treated equal to men in our society?
While contemplating over all these questions, my eyes fell upon the ad in "The Hindu". The ad, obviously given by the government itself, states the achievements in the past year like funding the Shakthi SHGs, scholarship to rural girls, and the like. Good moves I should say. But the ad starts with the lines, "Woman... is the symbol of tolerance, sacrifice & affection". Is this the image that the women want for themselves? I don't think so. Even when Sushmita Sen won the coveted miss universe award with her answer, "A Woman is someone who shows man what love is", I was not happy with it. Aren't we giving too much of importance to man and identifying the woman's image only as a part of him? Well, atleast these are better than the "Prestige Smart Woman Contest" which has such intelligent questions like "What does Prestige make?"
All these on one side, another article gave me a glimpse of another side to the dice (can't say, "Coin", as I see many facets to this issue). This article is about women taking blogging as a means of a getaway from the traditional boundaries. At the outset the article posed to be one highlighting the rightful needs of the women. But wait a minute, what are all these that follow? A women uses blogging to explain in detail about the various parts of Rahul Bose's anatomy, another to explain about her lesbian life. Whatever I might think about women's independence (sorry, couldn't get a better word), things like these do give me a culture shock.