A small thought on the international women's day

A happy  women's day to all the wonderful women who are reading this blog.
I salute all the wonderful women whom I have met in my life.

My mother who has amazed me always with her continuous work for our family and the society around her.
My maternal grandmother who is energetic and strong at 85.
My paternal grandmother(who passed away few years ago) who stayed alone in the nights at the age of 18, in a village bordering a forest with elephants and tigers after marriage(As my grandfather had to travel to city some times).
My cousins,sisters and sister-in-law who are courageous women in their own ways.
All the friends whom I had from my childhood until now(who amazed me with their attitude )
All the wonderful women I meet at my work place these days....

             I wanted to write about this for a long time now,finally on this women's day I put my words down.One of the surprising things I found out while working in Europe was that women are paid lesser than men here for the same job and the funnier thing is that most of the women I worked with accept it as a matter of fact.

I quote from a report by EU:


There are still significant wage differentials between women and men across the EU and Norway.
The 1995 European Structure of Earnings Study (SES) showed that the average earnings of women employed full-time in industry and services in the EU were only around 75% of those of men, although there were significant variations between the countries of the EU. 

So in Europe when women boast of freedom and liberty , they get paid 25% lesser than their male counterparts for the same job.The situation is not so different in United States


It gives me an extra pleasure while talking with my colleagues here that this is not the case in professional companies in India(I still have to agree that in  the unskilled labour market, the female workers earn lesser than their male counterparts)
I come from a state in India which is progressive (which boasts of a literacy rate equal to that of New york) where women comprises 51.2% of the population.You can read more about Kerala here

We,as women were given equal opportunities  in our state.

I worked in a professional Indian company (which has branches all over the world) for few years.The only criterion for determination of salary in my company was performance. I know some of my women friends who earn more than their counterpart men in India due to their good performance at their work.To support my blog I have an article from NYTimes

One in five of India’s big bank, insurance and money-management companies is headed by a woman, according to a study by the headhunting group EMA Partners. By contrast, there are no women leading major American or European banks, and no woman has ever run a Wall Street investment bank.


I cannot claim that women in India are more realized than women in the west.There are still lot of inequality and injustice against women in many parts of India.I just wanted to question the stereotype some people have in their mind.About women in India not being  free,not having career opportunities, forced to marry by arranged marriage(I will deal with this topic some time later)....etc etc.

The situation that I faced and these articles just made me sit and think.
The feminist movement here fought for equality of women, right to have a career, right to stay single, right to have abortion,right to select their man with their own will....
So are these what women actually want?
But are they really equal?What were they fighting for ??
One of friends told me that women and men are not equal, they are made for each other.
They are complimentary and inseparable.Each has their own function to perform.The talk reminded me of sivaparvathy where Siva forms one half and Parvathy forms the other half.

I know that some of my free-spirited women friends might not like this article.But, I had to put this down.
You all are welcome to comment.
Thanks 'M' for making me write down my thoughts!!!