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Umm..Happy Women's Day?

Last year on 8th March, International Women's Day, I had a holiday. Preparatory leave for final exams in my MBA. I woke up late, had a nice brunch which my Mom made, indulged in some languid afternoon Telly, downloaded the latest episode of Modern Family and laughed a lot while watching it, went for a walk in the evening, decided to "prepare" for the exam in the night, but fell asleep instead. It was a happy women's day for me.

This year on 8th March, I went to office. (That too on a Saturday. You should all sign a petition to request my office to give us Saturdays off. Really. It effects my blogging capacity so much.)

So yes. I went to office. And from there started my women's day experience.

I wore pink, because we had a dress code. Yes. Tokenism at its best. I mean, women wearing pink on women's day is equivalent to opening a snake charmer counter at the entrance of the International Airport in Delhi to welcome all those foreigners who come here expecting that. Basically, I mean, duh.

In fact, colloquially speaking, we also had a snake charmer in office. My favorite Pantry boy was standing at the entrance, wearing a white glove, handing out pink roses to all the women. *shudder*

We (as in, the women) got invited to two separate Women's Day events. So my colleague and I got down to planning. We calculated that the biggest takeaways from these events were basically lunch and a goody bag. After much inquiry, we decided that Event 1 had a better goody bag, while Event 2 had a better lunch.

It really wouldn't have warranted a whole blog post if that's what happened, right? We ended the day with a count of 1 bad lunch and 1 sad goody bag.

I would have consoled myself if atleast the events we attended really honored us. They called a doctor who spent 2 hours telling a room full of women, how difficult it is to be a woman and how much risk our body undergoes thanks to what nature has designed for us. Seriously? If anything, I would have supported this whole event more if they had shown all this to men, so that they understand the complication of being women and not act like this:



Anyway. So then the doctor talked and talked and talked about taking care of our bodies because we are basically, walking timebombs. How that's a way to make women feel happy, beats me.
The next speaker was a dietitian. I swear, my brain blanked out at this point (partly because this post started forming in my head and partly because of the tokenism of it all). 

This was followed by a huge, pink cake, with roses on it. Now here, the most interesting thing happened. Who cuts the cake, was the big question we were all pondering over. The audience profile here is important. There were girls like me, uninterested, bored, waiting for a piece of the cake and that goody bag. There were the organizers, in nice saris and looking ready to blend into the next Yash Johar film set. There were the older women, with 15 year old teenage kids, so fed up of all the chaos at home, that this event was actually a welcome respite to them.

So, one genius came up with a brilliant solution to the cake conundrum. She pointed out quite ingeniously that since only 1 person can cut the cake and since there 35 of us in the room, we should all hold hands and make a chain and the last person cuts the cake. Like this:

She was serious. That was the most ridiculous thing I heard all day. That's saying a lot given what all I sat through. But it still wasn't the funniest. The funniest thing was that the lady beside me, belonging to that 3rd category of audience, decided to take it upon herself (and me), to make this suggestion come alive, irrespective of whether it had been accepted or not. She grasped my hand and made me grasp the next persons hand. Obviously, given how the day was proceeding, it is safe to assume that the suggestion was not accepted and the three of us were left holding hands in the middle of the room, for no visibly apparent reason. Just like that. 3 of us, holding hands, looking around for support.
Yes. It was embarrassing.

Anyway. So then we inched through the rest of the day, prayed for the events to get over fast, ate a bad lunch and came back with a sad goody bag. To end the day, me and my team decided to treat ourselves, by watching Queen. And frankly, that was the best part of the day. (Digression: If you haven't watched the movie, please go watch now. There's not much left in the post anyway.)

My point is this.
You want to make women happy? Just give us the day off. Do not. I repeat, do not resort to tokenism. We do not always like pink roses. We do not like pink cakes. (Prefer chocolate, if you realllly want to do tokenism). We do not fall for goody bags. Please do not tell us again and again that we are victims of nature and society.
Just. Give. The. Damn. Day. Off.

Thank you.

Preeks

Comments

  1. Hahahahahah! Rolling away! I mean seriously? The hand holding? I might have actually died of shock!
    By the way, celebration should always mean a day off, liberty to choose what you want! This was ridiculous. Ours was an invite to Westin for dinner on Saturday night (we have the day off). Not bad you say?

    Erm, below the invite was the offer - one free drink and 30% off dinner for 'Kitty Party'. I growled and said bye right then!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kitty Party! Seriously, who decides this stuff? Can't be a well-thinking woman for sure.

      Delete
  2. Hahaha I totally agree. You want us to celebrate, then give us a day off. That's the best gift ever!

    They actually had doctors and a dietitian? Wow, crazy! I understand your plight sistah!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We should all sign a petition for this holiday thing. I can do with one extra holiday every year! :D

      Delete
  3. Hahaha. No matter what they claim, these types of celebrations just don't work. Yeah. Just give the damn day off.

    Hand holding was hilarious and ridiculous. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Love the hand holding picture, btw. Which one is you? :D

      Delete
    2. Definitely the one without a grin! :P

      Delete
  4. hahahahahah holding hands while cutting cake..hahahaha fuck the what!! hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pink Cake !!.Roses!! and holding hands...!! ROFL..Funny cartoon you have done..Why not taking it as an opportunity to discuss real issues of women in work place like need for more maternity leave, policies for pregnant women and facilities like onsite day care et al for new age mommies instead of sermonizing ? Well.. A day of would be a good bonus as well :) Am bugging to partner for Queen this weekend !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah..I wouldnt have minded if people discussed issues. But there was nothing on those lines!
      You must watch Queen! :)

      Delete
  6. hahahaha.. couldn't stop laughing when I read you 3 holding hands..hehe.. these celebrations are really ridiculous. They could have given you a day off, instead of all this pinky pink drama. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I thought I had commented on this post..maybe what happened was that I laughed soooooooo much...that I forgot to comment. It was hilarious! :D

    ReplyDelete

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