Why make women feel special only on one day? It’s Ladies First through the year, not just Women’s Day

BHOPAL: Vaccination centers wore a festive look and special arrangements were made in many states on Women’s Day to make fairer sex feel special, however, here in Madhya Pradesh, the state seem contended with the chivalrous custom of ‘Ladies first’. The authorities have taken the plea that women in the state are always given preference 365 days a year and uniformity throughout the year yields good results.

On the occasion of the International Women's Day, Maharashtra government on Monday set up five Covid-19 vaccination centres in each district exclusively for inoculating women. These centres were to remain operational for the day only. Similarly, Bihar government aimed to vaccinate about 1 lakh women against Covid-19 on International Women’s Day with the government commemorating the event with festival-like arrangements to make the women, turning up at vaccination centres, feel special. ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers in different districts have been asked to motivate women eligible for vaccination to turn up at the PHCs.

State Immunization officer Dr Santosh Shukla said, the government always gives priority to women and so there is no need to do any special arrangements for them on International Women Day to make them feel special.

“Doing something special only for one day (International Women’s Day) does not serve the purpose. Let the other states do. We give women importance throughout the year. We have adopted uniform rule Ladies First. This is followed throughout the year and that goes for today- International Women Day- also. Uniform rules give good results. At vaccination sessions sites, we have been giving preference to women right from the beginning. When vaccination was rolled out for Health Care Workers (HCWs), we gave preference to women standing in line. Similarly, at time of FLWs, we continued with this rule. So we do not need special things to make International Women Day special for women beneficiaries, who always remain out priority,” said Shukla.