Savitribai Phule was the first female teacher who was rebellious about the notions related to women. ‘Awake, arise and educate, smash traditions – Liberate’ these words were written by her. Now we understand how much pain she must have gone through in this fight as initially she was the only woman rebelling. She lived at a place in Maharashtra and married at the age of 9 to Jyotirao Phule who is now termed as an Ideal husband. When they were married Jyotirao Phule knew that Savitri loved to study so he helped her thoroughly in her education. Then later they both together started the movement of reformation in their village. She along with her husband opened schools for girls in Pune. It was a time when British invaders were already exploiting and at that time Peshwa was the ruler of Maharashtra. People were used to Brahmin conventions at that time and it was a complete male dominated notion that they were into.
How male dominated world worked:
Girls were forced to marry at the earliest age possible. Girls were forced to marry an old person, which counts as Child marriage. Women were treated no less than an animal.
Widows were treated like a piece of trash. They were forced to shave their heads and wear white sarees FLAB (for life and beyond). They were even restricted in every sense – fashion, food, dress up and what not.
Girl education was nowhere existed and it was against their culture because they say that if a girl studies she becomes a poison for her husband’s food. I mean, how can that be true practically? Women were not allowed to re-marry even after death of their husbands, all the shit related to women getting married again is a sin was termed under SATI SYSTEM. Women were made to live under the four walls of home and were entitled to do domestic chores only.
According to male dominated society of that time women were only for physical pleasures and WOMEN WERE CONSIDERED HELPFUL FOR TAKING THE GENERATION TO NEXT LEVEL AS THEY CARRY SOME FUCKING HORMONES.
Under all these circumstances Savitribai completed her education where her husband was her teacher and he was the one who asked Savitribai to utilize her education as a medium to illuminate the darkness of society. She has become social reformer and tried all her efforts for education girl child and all the women around her. She faced a lot of criticism and exploitation herself but somewhere the thought of educating women has come into people’s mind. She got beaten up by hundreds of men but her determination to educate thousands of women couldn’t stop her from those hundreds of men.
She is a real hero of what we call feminism today. Her step of ruining her life has paid off in us being educated. If she hadn’t taken those steps then we wouldn’t have come long this way. We should be greatful to her for keeping us away from the circumstance the women of that time had been through. But somewhere the fight she started has not ended yet and we need more Savitribai for making this world believe that women are no less than men. It is a shame on those who believe this false statement.