“For women… the barrier to entry is much higher.” Mahua Moitra spelt out the challenges for aspiring women politicians in India... 🌟📣
📹: Mathrubhumi International Festival Of Letters.
📹: Mathrubhumi International Festival Of Letters.
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00:00If you're a woman and you are tough and you know your mind and you have clarity of vision,
00:05you're a bitch. But those very same qualities in a man are qualities to be lauded.
00:11Women are the only gender whose gender is defining their profession.
00:15Today in the world, there's only 28 women who are leading countries.
00:30Normally, I don't like accepting these topics which are very women-oriented because, you
00:52know, I think the very fact that women get siloed into a woman author, a woman politician,
00:59a woman doctor, that itself is something that we need to get away from because I would like to be
01:05just a politician or just a leader or just a doctor. Men are never asked, you know,
01:10what does it feel like to be a male doctor? What does it feel like to be a male engineer?
01:15So I think one of the things is that we need to move away from the fact that we are defined,
01:19our gender defines us because women are the only gender whose gender is defining their
01:24profession. For men, it's never like that. And I think we'll have reached equality when we
01:29actually don't use male or female before what we do. We let what we do defines us.
01:35In today in the world, there's only 28 women who are leading countries. There's 13 heads of state
01:42and 15 heads of government. So India, for example, has a head of state in the president,
01:47but our prime minister is male. There are countries which have a female prime minister
01:51and a male president. So there's only 28 countries in the world that have women in things of power.
01:57In women in politics, I think the two or three things that are strangely contradictory. Now,
02:05in politics, it's not as easy. It's not that you have the barrier to entry is much higher.
02:11Especially in a country like India, the barrier to entry, if you are from a political family,
02:16there is no barrier. But if you are a lateral entrant, that is, if you're someone like me,
02:21who's come in without a background in politics or without, you know, a legacy in politics,
02:27and you're coming in from a professional background, then the barriers to entry are
02:30almost impossible. But if you are born into a political family, then it's almost as if the
02:36daughter or the wife or the daughter-in-law is automatically considers the heir. So in Indian
02:43politics, the fact that you're a woman in a dynastic line does not exclude you. Very often
02:49you will see when a politician retires or is not given the ticket, his wife or his daughter-in-law,
02:54so then the gender doesn't go against you. But if you're not in dynastic politics,
02:59then to get into politics, the bar is higher for women than for men. The other thing that I want
03:05to say is this is something which is true in politics, but I also think it's true in everything
03:11else, is if you're a woman and you are tough and you know your mind and you have clarity of vision,
03:18you're a bitch, you're called aggressive, you're called bossy, but those very same qualities in a
03:25man are qualities to be lauded. Oh, you know, he knows his mind, he's a leader, he's standing
03:32straight, he knows what he wants. So these were the stereotypes that I think at least women in
03:36the 80s and 90s had to deal with. I think now, finally, the freedom of choice, which is the
03:44freedom to be soft, the freedom to be a woman leader and still wear high-heeled shoes, the
03:51freedom to be a woman leader and not make excuses about wearing red nail polish, that is also my
03:56freedom, right? The freedom to be, if I choose to be at home and look after my children is also my
04:02freedom, if I choose to keep a nanny and go out and work is also my freedom. So I think this idea
04:07of a holistic idea of freedom as choices, as active choices that women are allowed to make, rather
04:13than choices that are thrust upon them by either circumstances or family or the patriarchy, is
04:19something that obviously in the last 10 years we have seen huge leaps in.