Would the Country be Cleaner if Women Ran the Government?
Here, I am not going to put up pictures of garbage, piling up on every street corner.
I am not going to talk of lack of civic sense and lack of national pride.
I am not going to talk of illiteracy, overpopulation, emptying of villages and overcrowding of cities.
I am not going to talk about inefficient garbage disposals, garbage piles a mile high near lakes on the outskirts.
I am not going to talk of stray dogs and crows which make sure that garbage is re-distributed along the entire streets and not just piled up in street corners.
I am going to talk about the different “cleanliness sensitivities” of men and women : Take an average home. A man will not notice the mess he has created and is adding to. A woman will notice things in roof corners, behind doors and under sofa sets. Women are more sensitive to uncleanliness. (I know this is a sweeping generalisation, but it is a true sweeping generalisation )
Girl power in the Indian government
See article Girl power in the Indian government (not mine..!), for the number and names of women in the present central executive and legislative.
Ok with all this woman power.. will we start seeing physically cleaner cities and surroundings of human habitation? Are Sonia, Meira, Pratibha, Sushma, Ambika, Agatha, Mamata, Mayawati, Purandareswari and others thinking about this….
It is my sincere hope and prayer. A clean country will automatically have good hygeine, excellent morals, pride, education .. everything. Cleanliness should be the number 1 priority.
I agree that women are little more hygiene admirer than man but I don't think a woman ruler can make any big difference to this issue.Cleanliness is more of a public awareness thing, unless the people of this country will not understand their responsibilities nothing is going to happen.I think education is more important.If these small things like health awareness,hygiene awareness will be taught to children from their school level in more practical manner (now they only teach it in theory only so things stay inside books only) with help of parents then everything will fall to place automatically.As far as woman ruler and man ruler is concerned I don't think the country was more cleaner during the Regime of Indira Gandhi and is less cleaner during Manmohan Singh.
"I think education is more important."
The garbage heaps are right next to the anganvadis is and govt primary schools. That is not the correct environment for education. I think cleanliness first.
"I don't think the country was more cleaner during the Regime of Indira Gandhi and is less cleaner during Manmohan Singh"
Of course it was.., I was a girl then and saw it for myself...
Also then we were a socialist democracy and not a capitalist democracy, so less consumerism and wastage,
And then we had a little thing called the "emergency" which made people scared.
And then we were less populated, anyway. We are comparing the 70s and 80s with 00's.
We need comparable current constituencies one with a woman leader and one with a man leader.. to make that sort of comparision.
with full respect to your opinion.I want to say, whether education is more important or cleanness is a matter of different perspective, your opinion is cleanliness comes before education and my opinion is we should educate people right from the beginning and cleanliness will be part of our daily life and that will result in cleanlinessof the country .Govt. can only employ a limited number of workforce to make the country clean but if each citizen of this country will be well educated to see after the hygiene and cleanliness then things will be very easy as we are country of billion population. That is jut my opinion.
As u have said clealiness is dependent on capitalism,socialism,political state(emergency) and population etc. so what I can say is we just need a good leaders who can manage all these .We always need good leader whether she is man or woman it doesn't matter to me.There are many developed country which give more attention to cleanliness but they don't have any female priminister or president.I agree that it will be nice to have a healthy ratio of male and femal leaders but they should be choosen on the basis of their merit and not for reasons like they belong to certain cast,colour,gender or religion.Again these are ploitical thing and I'm really very bad in that.
Thank you very much for your interest and your responses. I truly value them.
This post was inspired by an Andhra woman MLA who said that sanitation was one of her priorities. I have never heard of any MLA or even the new Bangalore (BBMP) commissioner giving priority to Sanitation.
My frustration is with the garbage pile ups in Bangalore and people are adding to them, new ones are being started and no one is clearing them away. I have written to our MLA.
On my walk, I saw the new garbage piling up right next to the Anganvadi where small infants are learning letters and numbers.
Do we have to wait for the Anganvadi infants to grow up and become educated till the country becomes clean?
Suppose they fall sick?
I am seeing migrant workers putting up their huts behind municipality dumps.
How can they be healthy? The villagers are letting their sewage into our storm drains. Suppose we fall sick.
That is why I think, first clean up!!
In a country this size we dont have money or manpower... something strange.. eh?
In Machilipatnam, the roads are swept all day long. Do they have money or will?
Maybe Bhuvaneshwar is a very clean place. If so you are blessed.
I too do believe that healthy and clean environment is right of all us.If you believe that any certain person can bring a change to the sanitary condition of your area then the constitution of India has given you all the right to choose that person as your leader, it doesn't matter whether that person is a man or woman.In today's world where man are successful chefs and women are doing great as CEO of top business organizations it will not be good idea to classify jobs on the basis of gender.What I have seen in India is we ourselves contribute so much to make our country unhealthy and we never realise about it.We spit on roads,we use road sides as toilet,we discharge garbage at wrong places,we smoke at public places etc.; unless we are not going to stop these things we can't make our country clean.As you have mentioned about those Anganvadi kids I too believe that they have all right to grow up in healthy environment.But imagine if today's kids will not be given proper education about cleanliness and hygiene then tomorrow they will also do the same mistakes as done by us.So according to me educating ourselves will be a long term solution to this problem.As far bhubaneswar is concerned, yes things have improved here in last two three years and I wish the very best for your city too.
LOL .. My house is definitely cleaner only because of my wife! so yes :)
Sorry.. I would like to disagree... I suppose this statement is bit naive.... both women and men are part of the same social system... there might be some difference between their perspctives regarding power and governance. But in many cases it is the system which rules (humans don't control the system). What we need is : clean the system, make it more accoutable so that whoever is at the helm of it, keeps it clean. Yes, women can play a role in cleaning the system, but unless men to participate, that would be never ending task.
I am not against women governing, in fact I would like to have more space for women. But too many expectations from women is neither going to help women's cause nor help men increase their sensitivty.
Second paragraph second last line read 'men too' instead of 'men to'........sorry.
Regardless of men or women, it has to be run by people who live for a social cause. Men or women doesn't matter. Just because its completely run by Women or completely by men, nothing will change.
There is no doubt women can clean places better than men. This is very much visible on the so called 'ethnic days' in office, things are a lot more cleaner those days because thats the day when women takeout their carefully dry-washed and kept 'sarees' which they have last worn for a friends wedding few generations back. They will sweep the entire place so clean and neat by dragging those sarees along that you can actually see your face reflectiong on the floors, believe me.
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