21st century...women

During my days as a Master’s student in the Indian capital, I came across a group of women who used to call themselves ‘feminists’-they would organize events of all sorts to uphold the rights, freedom and equality of women. These were well-educated, fashionable ladies from the higher echelons of the Indian society who would pick up all sorts of social issues concerning women and keep themselves busy with that. Ironically, many of them were dependent on their respective husbands for monetary requirements.
And then I come to the US and now in the US capital, I meet these women’s rights' organization people who run offices employing women of all ages (well-educated of course; they even have undergrad interns!) and host high profile ‘women’s cause related’ events where Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton are invited to give speeches! Wow-I was impressed & touched! (A young intern couldn’t stop exclaiming about the exhilarating moment when Hillary apparently looked at her and smiled; the 20 yr. old has of course decided to become a ‘feminist’, to devote her life to the noble cause of fighting for women’s equality!) In such events they sit and discuss and form opinion and write articles on issues such as the righteousness of treating birth-control pills as a mechanism by which life is destroyed and the right of women to choose regarding abortion etc.
In both instances in both countries, they came across to me as highly elitist groups of women who can empathize with any issue concerning women all over the world and will fire up at the slightest mention of any harassment or oppression against women in any country-very noble cause indeed.
But this got me thinking-what do these feminists really ‘do’ to ‘solve’ these real issues that they so passionately discuss sitting in their air-conditioned swanky offices in some high-rise building of DC or Delhi? How many of these women wearing Ann Taylor suits and stilettos and carrying Gucci bags and figuring out which celebrity guest speaker to invite for the next conference on ‘women as rape victims’ or ‘women’s liberation & empowerment’ etc etc, have ever gone out there and seen with their own eyes what really happens in the areas where women are most oppressed or have actually met and spoken to the so-called ‘victims’-the subjects of their own professional careers? It’s true that you surely need influential people to uphold such causes in order to implement any policy that may solve the issues-and sections of representatives in the government are theoretically supposed to be doing so. And then there are the NGOs the members of which actually do the ‘field-work’, raise donations and try to reach out to the women who need their help and support. Amidst all these, what exactly do the ‘feminists’ do to contribute in any meaningful manner? Honestly, I have no idea and if someone has, I will be glad to learn!
It seems to me that ‘feminism’ has become a social-status-symbol, some kind of a mini-cult, a fashionable tag you can carry around like your Gucci bag.
We talk of a post-modern 21st century where couple are going to the space to get married!
In this same era, there exist countries such as Uganda where the sole purpose of women is to ‘produce’-if a woman can’t bear a child, she is considered a ‘failure’-abandoned by husband and parents, kept secluded from the rest of the society and left all to herself to die and it never occurs to the men that their own physical problems can also lead to such issues;
In certain impoverished villages of India, the ‘devadasi’ system is still in vogue where the parents of a girl-child force her into prostitution in the name of serving the Gods;
In the recent Beijing Olympic games inauguration ceremony, we saw proud women from countries such as Bahrain and Egypt marching alongside with the men-but did anyone spot any woman representative for Saudi Arabia or Qatar? Most likely no because the religious leaders of these countries have banned women from participating in sports because they fear that women will get attracted to each other and violate Islam rules once they come out in the open wearing ‘leotards and tight tops’;
Such issues from all over the world are endless and I only hope that some day instead of writing a blog article about these, I can actually go out there to somehow help these women who are forced to live in a totally different era even as the world around them celebrates nuclear deals.
And I also hope that some day in near future, rich, urban women who call themselves ‘feminists’ actually realize that it takes much more than celebrity speeches and fancy conferences or traffic-stopping processions to even get close to these burning issues, let alone solving them.