Attitude toward women is changing: Activists

There has been a change in the attitude towards women and on the gender issue, women activists said Thursday.

"There is change, you can feel it in the air," Kamla Bhasin, coordinator of One Billion Rising South Asia and advisor at Sangat, a South Asian feminist network, told IANS.

"Whether it is in the form of women stand-up comedians, or the girl who took on Honey Singh, or the woman who raised an alarm against the man who molested her in an airplane," Bhasin said on the sidelines of a press conference held here to announce the latest edition of the One Billion Rising campaign.

"Today, more than ever, we know that the time has come to sing a requiem to patriarchy and bury or cremate it, because it is harming both men and women alike.

"More importantly, the sooner we as people recognise that patriarchy is in direct contravention of the Constitution and the human rights conventions that we as a country are official signatory to, and act on it, the better it will be for all of us," Bhasin said.

The campaign, which aims at spreading awareness on violence against women and gender sensitisation, also focuses on accessibility for women with disabilities.

Anjlee Agarwal from civil society group Samarthyam spoke about the exclusion of nearly 80 million women with disabilities.

She said multiple levels of discrimination and neglect stems from lack of disaggregated data on disability and gender and results in having no basic facilities such as toilets, debarred from pursuing education in an institution of one's choice because of inaccessible environments especially in schools, coercive treatment and even incarcerations in some settings.

A series of programmes have been planned across the country till Feb 14 by a chain of NGOs and women's rights groups for the campaign.