Happy International women’s day.

My favorite Tamil poet, great Mahakavi Subramaniya Barathiyar said this about the modern-day woman he had envisioned in the early 1900:

Nimirndha nan nadai naer konda paarvaiyum

Nilathil yaarkkum anjaatha nerigalum

Thimirndha gnana cherukkum iruppadhaal

Semmai maadhar thirambuvadhu illaiyaam.

The best translation I found was (from an internet source)

Her head held high, and looking every- one in the eye,

Unafraid of any one because of innate integrity,

Possessing assuredness born of courage of conviction,

The Modern Woman never feels inferior to any.

The innate integrity and true strength of a women comes from empowerment. Women must be empowered with awareness of self, their innate qualities and their plus and minuses. Awareness of their mind, body and it dynamics are the most essential empowerment a woman needs.

A true celebration for a woman is, accepting her as she is and as she was meant to be. I believe in gender quality, I believe we woman can go in par with man in any worldly things thrown at us. But I also believe in this quest for gender equality we are losing out on accepting our individuality. What we must be aware is that we need not handle things exactly the way a man does and should allow our true nature to shine!

The physical difference is not the only difference between a man and a woman. We differ physiologically, neurologically, hormonally, spiritually from our male counterpart. These must be taken in to consideration to bring out the best in a woman. This must be acknowledged and accommodated to ensure the peak performance of a woman. These are not weakness, these are in truth our added advantages. Leave alone men, even women consider these as drawbacks and fail to learn to use these unique traits as their leveraging points.

Failing to acknowledge this difference and forcing our self to walk in the men’s shoe and think like a man, in a world dominated by them is not gender equality, it is indeed a suppression of true expression.

What are our exclusive advantage and how do we harness it?

Hormonal advantage

We women, are hormonal creatures. Our day to day activities are highly influenced by our hormones. It is not an altogether bad thing. If we learn to harness the power of our hormones, we can peak our performance.

For example, the in a menstrual cycle the first day of the period is referred as D1. In a cycle, roughly the first half is dominated by one hormone and the next half by the opposing hormone.

The hormones in the first half favor productivity. In this phase you can perform and deliver in your full capacity. You handle stress well, handle meetings efficiently and can tackle problems clearly. We should use this period to maximize our interactions, productivity and deliverance.

The second half, which usually associated with depressive period, is a period where women can go into depth of things. She becomes very analytical. Yes, she is extra emotional at this period but that only makes her more sensitive to the problems. This period we can effectively for problem identification, analysis and trouble shooting. How ever it is best to avoid productivity based or interaction-based activities at this period.

Same principle applies at home, avoid confrontation in the second phase of your menstrual cycle. Ruminate over the issues concern but don’t make any decision in this period. Cut down on the physical load and learn to take a back seat in this period.

Also by applying the right lifestyle and correct nutrition we can learn to enhance or attenuate the effects of hormones.

By understanding and accepting these periods and cycles in our life allows us to tap into our energy effectively.

The problem is we never acknowledge this exclusiveness. We compete in a man’s world in their way making us less efficient than we are supposed to be. Gender quality must then include the gender functional variation. This special trait in a woman must be acknowledged and accepted. A woman should have the freedom to do things when it is the best time for her.

Cognitive advantage

Though this should not be generalized, but most women are stronger empathizers and males are stronger systemizers.

Empathizing means the ability to view or perceive from another person’s point and feel what they feel. We as women are very sensitive to the emotional component and the nonverbal cues that reveal them compared to a man who process everything logically. We are emotional processors but that is not necessarily be bad in fact this is what is referred to as emotional intelligence, EQ and we are natural at it.

Women have more connections going left and right across the two halves of the brain allowing them to use the both local and intuitive brain hemispheres efficiently. MRIs showed larger amount of gray matter was found in women in their hippo campus (associated with memory) and another structure, the left caudate (responsible for communication skills). White matter is basically the brain wiring system. Which simply means women are bettered wired to understand and communicate, which in turn makes us better problem solvers and negotiators.

We must learn to think and act using our empathetic nature. We should not shy away from using our natural tool. This could prevent most conflicts in any communications. Not that we are not capable or should not apply logic in our communication, but we should hone our gift to balance logic with emotion to gain better results.

Feminine energy.

For a long time, feminism is confused with weakness. Masculinity was equated with strength. Women in the corporate sector were taught to push aside the feminine nature and adapt to the masculine trait to survive and excel.

Feminine energy is neither weaker or stronger than masculine energy. Both complement each other, and both need to exist in the correct balance to spark creative energy. Neither masculine or feminine energy could do it alone.

The problem arises when we lose this balance, when we unknowingly suppress one of the energy we get into an imbalance or a dis-ease within resulting in many unwanted effects. Stress and stress related disorders like gastritis, anxiety, depression, weight issues and fertility issues are all due to this imbalance in energy.

Most of the time we forget to nurture the feminine energy due the constant demands of masculine energy at workplace and other places of interaction. We are nurturers, that is our innate gift. And the first person we need to nurture is ourselves. We must accept, acknowledge and unconditionally love the person we are and both the energy within us equally. We also must learn to harness these energies individually as per demand.

There are not hard and fast rules of how a woman is structured. Every woman differs among each other and from the male counterpart. Acknowledging this difference is awareness. Accepting the difference is power. Awareness with power is empowerment. By first understanding who we really are and how we really function is the only way can we make others understand and be understood.

So, learn to know more about who you are, how you function and what makes you who you are. Encourage other women to do the same. This for me is the true empowerment Bharathi was talking about.

MugilMekala