Did Women's Day exist for you?

I have grown up in a family with 6 women who have always worked except it was never labelled as work! My grandmother went to the temple every morning at 4 am to pray for her ‘ sons’ success and fed food to the street side children with her own hands. My mother has cooked and cleaned and fed a family of a dozen or more members for all her life; today the family remaining with her might just be two but she still sends food out to people struggling with illnesses even while she herself battles cancer. My aunts have crocheted bags, taught biology, and even knitted sweaters to support additional income of the family but no! None of this was work – all of this was merely playing the role of a wife, a mother, a woman!

Women’s day never existed for these women, women’s day never existed for me or my sisters either when we were young or when I was married, but today it does for me. Do you know why? Because today, I am defined by the world as a working woman.

Ironic in so many ways as I have always worked – when I was in college I was already writing for newspapers, when I went for my Masters’ program I was already interning with India’s top national paper and when I gave up my job offer to get married, I was already expected to help my husband in his organization. So nothing had changed – my grandma, mum, aunts and I were not ‘working women’, we were just labelled as ‘women’ or a term I totally detest ‘house-wife’!

This changed when I stepped out of that very large bottomless hole to create my own venture, to make my own decisions, and most critically make my own money. Yes, being alone is what allowed me to be together with several other women.

Financially independent is a term I understand and would want every woman to understand this too – this is your pen to etch your name, this is your sword to express your identity, and this is the most noiseless yet effective way of being respected in a world where society has carved the status of women so carelessly!!

At 45, if I could step out of my comfort zone to do something it was surely because of the men backing me up to do so – my son taught me how to create worksheets, analyse data, predict growth and believe in myself; my husband taught me how to write contracts, maintain accounts, and not take an error personally. But in my heart I believe that I have learnt the ability to work from those 6 women who thought that they did not work – this Women’s day, I salute each one of you for without you this year too would pass without me celebrating my working-woman-hood.

So to my fellow women folks, what is the message here? Simple. You need to return to work, you need to believe you can do it, you need to push yourself and all the other 6 women around you too. Did you ask how? Simple again. Join our team of Aspire For her – you can meet mentors of every age, with work experiences in diverse industries, you can interact with members who are about to tread on the career path and already have access to seminars, workshops, internships, counseling and so much more that they know they will be a successful working woman once they step into the job market. And this whole initiative is for FREE! All it takes is a visit to the website www.aspireforher.org to transform your life. What better day than Women’s day to start it.