Union min says women can't work together for their empowerment

Union Minister Y S Chowdary believes no two women can work together for female empowerment and that India is wrongly considered as a country where violence is inflicted on women, as there is "much more" gender discrimination in countries like the US.

Chowdary also said there was a need for women to realise the importance of "interdependency" between males and females, underlining the role of "attitude and mindset" in this regard.

The Union minister was speaking on the theme 'Women's status and decision making power' at the first National Women's Parliament here.

Addressing the large gathering of girl students and women, he said there are "bad apples" everywhere and went on to cite mythological figures such as Saraswati, Laxmi and Kanaka Durga to claim that women have always enjoyed respect in India.

"Unfortunately our country is being picturised as (a place where) violence against women is definitely more. Which personally I feel may not be true...There will be some per cent of bad apples everywhere. Violence against women, if you talk more and more, that is where women are losing confidence," he said.

He also claimed that there is "much more" discrimination in the US than in India. He rued that while impetus is being given to women empowerment, the fairer sex was practising "double standards" as a "mother wants her son to do better in life first".

"In our country we see double standards when a woman becomes mother. Every mother wants her son to shine first," he said, adding that "from my experience, no two women can work together for women's empowerment".

"Every women feels the need for independence. Independence can harness good results only when interdependence is respected. Every woman has to understand the importance of interdependence of male and female," he said.

Chowdary said he was initially opposed to the idea of reservation for women as he observed that at the Panchayat level, where women have 33 per cent reservation, the men were managing affairs and women were kept behind.

"But Chandrababu Naidu corrected me saying that reservation at least provides some beginning. Whereas I was under the impression that we are separating women and won't be able to attract talent," he said.

The first-of-its-kind event is being organised here by the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly with the theme of 'Empowering Women - Strengthening Democracy'.

Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Union Ministers M Venkaiah Naidu and P Ashok Gajapati Raju, AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi, Bangladesh Parliament Speaker Shirin Chaudhury, Gandhian Ela Bhatt, actress Manisha Koirala and many other dignitaries had attended the inaugural event yesterday.

The vision of NWP is to enable and encourage social, political and economic empowerment of women in all strata of the society. One of the objectives of NWP is to generate new ideas, theories and ideologies for women empowerment.