As the curtain rises on a fresh Women’s International Year, and women activist take to the streets to demand for their rights, and urge women to ‘Be Bold for Change’, for millions of others trapped by poverty and violence it will be just another bleak day in their lives.
Lankan women never really had to fight or shed blood for their rights in the way women in the UK and USA did . Most girls in our country have enjoyed free access to education, health, food shelter for nearly sixty years.
And in recent times there have been many instances where women have struck at the centre of jealously guarded male preserves and emerged triumphantly. These bastions of male preserve include; law, with Sri Lanka now boasting of a female judge, medicine- we now have many more women surgeons, cancer specialists, neuro physicians and anaesthetists among other specialties who are making their mark in this field, space technology, heads of universities, and even in the airline business, where at least two women have broken the glass ceiling to become pilots.
Women are also beginning to shine in the field of culture, with a number of females, old and young, have won national and global recognition for their contribution towards enriching our culture. One can only hope that our budding poets, singers, actresses, dancers and creative writers will continue to put the Lankan woman on the global map in 2017.