Celebrating 101th year of Women's Day With an 'Item' Dance

As posted by Maktoob Media 

Here we are celebrating the 101th International Women’s Day with every wall , every tweet , every jingle stating the importance of women in our lives be it as a mother, daughter , sister or wife. To prove our point, we invite on stage the sexy Miss xxxx for a sizzling “Item” number. Enjoying the paradox?
Cinema , art is considered to be the heart of any culture and it also injects a particular culture. Cinema and culture helps each other survive in short. And for the past 100 years, our Indian cinemas have justified what M.L Sharma, the defense Lawyer of the rapists in the Delhi Gang Rape 2012 claimed, “we have the best culture. In our culture, there is no place for a woman” (and he was not being satirical). The only thing a woman can do best according to the Indian cinemas is show her waxed clean legs and dance for the arousal of the audience. Even if she is a journalist, a police officer, a politician, a lawyer, a business woman (characters that are strong yet get all mushy under the muscles of the hero) there would be one scene, one song in which the attractive lead dances as an ‘item’ as the name justifies itself.

The unfortunate fact is that since 1954, from “babuji dere chalna” (Aar Paar) to 2015, “sessama” ( DK) , we have a long list of Item numbers that keep increasing at an alarming rate every year. This ‘munni badnaming’ list, proves that our society, both men and women simply enjoy objectifying women as an item of sexual pleasure. According to the first ever UN sponsored global Study of female characters in popular films across the world, India tops the chart in showing attractive women in its movies, and as much as 35 per cent of these female characters are shown with some nudity. The study finds that Indian films have a significantly higher prevalence of sexualisation of female characters and the movies score low in depicting women in significant speaking roles and as engineers and scientists.

What is the point of celebrating women’s day for the 101th time when we strongly move deep into a trend of commodifing the female sex as nothing but an item for pleasure? We ban documentaries that portray “India’s Daughter” in its original format, but never censor anything that photo shops a ‘Bharatia Nari’ to become part of a somebody’s wet dream. We protest during the day against gang rapes and eve teasing with slogans of ‘My body, Not Your Toy”, and dance during the night to “zara zara touch me”. We conduct award functions to celebrate the eminent personalities in various fields by giving them a treat of a girl hardly dressed, a.k.a , an item.

We should be celebrating the 101th International Women’s Day, with every status, every tweet, every article glorifying the woman for who she is; a selfless mother, a loyal friend, a sacrificing sister, a loving wife, a naughty daughter and most importantly an individual with dreams, with a personality, with dignity and definitely not an item.