Sajitha Madathil: Women's Empowerment

Emancipation and empowerment of women plays a major role in the development of a nation. Our country has achieved only partial success in fulfilling this aim. But we have miles to go. Women are always given a derogatory position in our society. They are hindered from contributing their true potential. She is always trapped in the restraints of convention. There man is the ‘centre’ and woman is always the ‘other’. She is not allowed to enter into the space where he dominates. She is always kept in the margins and is always considered unequal to men. In the earlier days, she had to face the problems only within her family. But now when she is capable of earning her own, she has to face the challenges imposed on her by her male counterparts in the workplace. The present study deals with the woman question still prevalent in our society and how this creates a negative impact on the life of working class women from the lower strata of our society. Sajitha Madathil exposes

Globalization too brought an adverse effect on the life of the community, especially the women. They are crushed in the hands of trawlers and foreign fishing ships. These trawlers slaughter the little fishes and decay the sea. The foreign ships take away the life of the fisher men. The narrator’s husband was also a victim in the hands of these foreign vessels. They left her and her kids alone. Now it is her responsibility to nurture her kids. For this, she has to strive hard in this male dominated society. To get fish, she has to depend harbours and has to walk long distance to reach there early in the morning. There too, she has to face a lot of challenges. If she is a little late, she won’t get good fish and as a result of globalization, fish has become dearer. This fish is bought and sold at low rate by the puffed up males and this creates a dilemma for the women fish