Empower women with education: De

HYDERABAD: There is a knife-like sharpness in her voice when she speaks about number games. For columnist Shobhaa De, gender equality - one of her favourite subjects - is hardly about 33 per cent reservation in Parliament or a specific number of ''ladies seats'' in buses.
"Empower a women with education, provide a level-playing field and see the difference," she said in an interview with The Times of India on Saturday.Shobhaa De was in the city on to attend a oneday conference at NISIET.
Behind the success of every woman is another woman or perhaps two women, De says. "It could be the domestic help at home, mother, mother-in-law, daughter or sister."
"And women are not vicious, plotting and scheming stereotypes out to get at each other as is depicted in most television serials," she added.
"It is an unfair portrayal. A medium as potent as television should restrain from showing such serials which take women 100 years back into time. We should raise our voice against such depiction," De said, her eyes flashing fire. Women are working to make the world better place, the novelist added.
"It is not entirely true to say that women do not gossip." "They do. You cannot expect sanitised, septic meeting. But, it not the only thing they do," she added.
For instance, the television serial Kitty Party is story of eight young people who provide support to each other as they roller-coast through life, she said. "It is reflection of problems urban women face and something closer to reality."
Shobhaa De is working on two new serials. "It is a little premature to talk about them, but I can say that they are strong, controversial and about power and corruption in high places."