‘Women sacrifice a lot’: Rajalaxmi Ankalagi

Manjunath Hadimani | NT

Rajalaxmi Ankalagi, a lawyer by profession, began her speech by quoting Dr Rajkumar’s song “Aadisi nodu beelisi nodu uruli hogadu, ene barali yaarigu sotu taleya bagadu”. She said that although the song was made in a different context, it gives the meaning of how strong the women are, who never tend to give up whatever the situation is. “This is the time where we speak about equal capability and more special capability of women,” Rajalaxmi said.

Explaining the social conditioning in society, Rajalaxmi said the process starts when the baby girl is born. “The entire purpose of a girl child is to get married and prove her to the family she becomes part of. Just for that, a girl has to sacrifice herself and be compromised with everything compared to her male siblings. Social conditioning starts when a boy is denied kitchen toys and when a girl is denied a car or a gun etc,” she said.

Sharing her experiences from Vijayapura, where Rajalaxmi hailed from, she said that if a man comes home at 10.30 pm, a woman, be it wife or mother, has to serve him hot jowar rotis because he is a man. “A woman has to eat at the end after everyone in the family had food. Our country’s speciality is that we are living from the 18th century to the 21st century simultaneously,” she said.

Talking about norms and stereotypes in society, she said that we can’t expect our elder generation to make the change. “We have to be the change-makers. We have to come out of the narratives that society has already imposed by showing a different perspective to our children. We have to change the system. We have to change the conditioning of the system.