Whenever there occurs any incident which involves harassment of women, the first thing that comes to mind is how these guys stand before their mothers after they do these heinous acts. A person's act is highly influenced by the environment they were brought up in. As we all know, recently we are experiencing more violent incidents and assaults towards women than the near past. Obviously the best solution would have been strict police actions right after the incidents occur. Unfortunately that does not so happen in many cases. What could be a long term solution to educate these guys who have no respect for humanity?
Home is the first school we all get enrolled in from our birth and no teacher can beat the influence we have from our ultimate teacher-- our mothers. As the women of our society grow up in this sub-continent, they learn that men are the superior of the two sexes and they have got the entire world open towards them. Needless to say, mothers play an important role in bringing up these men with this mentality. There are many families, educated ones to be more precise, where boys and girls grow up with different treatment. The 'man' of the family gets better food, better schooling opportunity, more freedom, even considered first while thinking about higher education. There are many families that do not allow girls to go abroad before marriage even for higher education, let alone for recreation. Often girls are on the victim side of all kinds of inhuman assaults. It is the guys who need to get more strict behaviour from their parents, regarding how to behave with the women and needed to be guided about respecting women rigorously.
The mother of the family plays the most vital role here. Naturally male children are more attached to their mothers and thus the education they get from their mothers plays a very important role on what kind of men they would turn to be in future. Women should feel proud for being women because they are blessed with the reward of procreating and also women with their many forms as a mother, wife, daughter can influence the men in their lives. All women need is to understand how powerful they are and how they can engage themselves in shaping the behaviour of men from very early age so that the assaults women of our society are facing these days could be stopped even from the very beginning.
If we manage to give our children a good lesson about the values of life from their tender age, the number of these incidents will go down in the years to come. The quality of entertainment children nowadays are posed to is a matter of concern. The cartoon that children used to watch in this country-Captain Planet, Tom and Jerry, Meena-- had good themes or inherent messages. Of them, the most important of them all is Meena, the girl who inspired all girls in Bangladesh during their childhood to be proud of being women. Meena cartoon was very educative and used to give messages in the form of entertainment. They used to raise voice about the discriminations and assaults women face in the society and inspire people to believe that women and men both belong to the same race which is the human race and humanity should be shown to all of them equally.
In the past children used to play in the playgrounds, they did not have much satellite channels back then and no social media like Facebook to make them glued to our devices. They used to read books and used to talk about them among friends.
Just a few years back, childhood in this country was blessed with real life friends, good cartoons, comics, story books and love from family members and neighbours. The absence of a happy and happening childhood also later became a core reason of violence against women. How can male playmates become violent towards their women counterparts? It is time for all to stop adding the tagline that 'hey you are a girl, you can't do this'. This social disease of assaulting women could also be removed with the help of a well maintained family. The women of our society need to be more cautious about themselves, if possible carrying something that can help them in time of need, learn self defense. Women are not alone, there are still many good people in the society than rotten ones. Just never stop believing in humanity. Stay safe.
The writer is an MBA
student at Marketing Department, University of Dhaka,
nashid.mahjabeen@yahoo.com
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