According to research reported by Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), there are 1.1 billion girls in this world, yet 65 million girls do not get any formal education. The girl child is discriminated against and exploited in many cultures across the globe. Even in the good old USA, the playing field is not level. Boys seem to always get the opportunities that are denied to many girls. Yet the girls work harder and are equally smart as the boys.
As these girls grow into young women, they face the glass ceiling of unequal pay, have to fight for promotions, and are discriminated against, and potentially exploited, in the work place. The rhetoric of equality is sparse on details, is not based in fact, and is a mirage at best.
We owe our daughters and sisters, and wives the respect and the opportunity they deserve. Not as a hand-me-down, but as a birth right to enable them to grow, blossom and live their lives the way the choose. Not the way that men choose. How else will we ever live in a fair world?
About Hemant Rustogi