‘Bias against women universal phenomenon’

August 21, 2015 12:00 am | Updated March 29, 2016 04:35 pm IST - VIJAYAWADA:

Students of Sri Durga Malleswara Siddhartha Mahila Kalasala display the book Neno Malala, the Telugu version of I Am Malala at a book-release function in Vijayawada on Thursday.- Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

Students of Sri Durga Malleswara Siddhartha Mahila Kalasala display the book Neno Malala, the Telugu version of I Am Malala at a book-release function in Vijayawada on Thursday.- Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

Religious fundamentalism should be opposed in all forms, said litterateur and recipient of Kendra Sahitya Adakemi Award Katyayani Vidmahe, here on Thursday.

Addressing a meeting organised in connection with the release of Nenu Malala , Telugu translation of the book I Am Malala , at Siddhartha Mahila Kalasala here, Ms. Vidmahe said patriarchy was thrust on a girl child the moment she was born. “I believe that discrimination against women is there everywhere.”

She said Malala’s story was that of every girl and it reflected in almost every household where male and female siblings were treated differently.

B. R. Ambedkar, she reminded, had stressed the need to make education an effective tool to wipe out social discrimination.

Malala Yousafzai, the girl who fought the Taliban for her right to education when the latter took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, had constant support of her father, she pointed out and cited contents of the book. “When Malala was born, none of her relatives showed interest in hosting the customary seventh day celebrations as she was a girl. But when her brother was born, her grandfather insisted on a celebration which was turned down by Malala’s father who did not feel the need to do something for his son when the same was denied to his daughter. “That was the kind of support Malala got from her father right from childhood,” Ms. Vidmahe said.

Besides social discrimination, she said I Am Malala effectively brings to the fore State-level discrimination wherein powerful higher forces use physical might to prevent education of girls.

“Empowerment through education is the bottom-line,” she said, adding that a large population of women across the world was kept away from education. “Privatisation is yet another culprit as it has made education costly, taking it beyond the reach of the middle class that now prefers to spend its hard-earned money to educate only its boys, confining the girls to the kitchens,” she remarked. Global economic policies therefore, she maintained, also posed a potent threat to girl education.

Telugu film director C. Umamaheswara Rao said education was the tool that helped an individual connect to one’s inner strengths. “Malala chanted the mantra of quality education, which is the need of the hour,” he said, adding: “Religious fanaticism and corporatisation of the education sector are major threats that need to be reversed.” College Principal Vijayalakshmi presided over.

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