Gender Discrimination Still Shadows Women: Ailsa Burkimsher Sadler's Petition Gains 70,000 Signatures

It’s 2014. But certain things probably are not destined to change. Considering many different perspectives of life, it is clear that even today, women are being prominently discriminated by social norms, cultural forms and often by their own people.

One such example is marriage certificate. One petition filed by Ailsa Burkimsher Sadler, to include mothers on marriage certificates has gained 70,000 signatures. For some insensitive minds, it might not matter, but excluding mothers’ names implies wiping off women from the historical records, and it's just one instance of sexism women face in every day life.

In any marriage certificate, the requirements are the details of a bride and groom’s fathers. “But mothers receive no mention – no space has even been made to do so. This stands true for opposite and same sex marriages alike.”

The petition launched by Alisa “calls for marriage certificates to comply with the Equality Act by including space for mothers’ names.”

She initiated it with a strong sense for justice. She wanted to create enough conservation so the “Home Office had to “sit up and pay attention”.

According to Alisa, this gender discrimination against women are so systemic that it is there everywhere, right from education to work place and media does play an extremely important role as far as Page Three coverage is concerned.

“Women have been degraded, belittled and served up as sex objects in the press for years, despite the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) repeatedly identifying the links between the portrayal of women as sexual objects with attitudes underpinning violence and discrimination against them (a position backed up in a review commissioned by the Government),” she was quoted saying.

Women face oppression in innumerable ways and this issue needs to be continuously addressed.

She wants to go for parliamentary reform where the focus is challenging the 'old boys' club' mentality.

A new campaign is also coming up, “calling for a fairer ‘50/50’ representation” of women in politics points out that just 23 per cent of MPs are female. We’re topped in that table by Afghanistan.”

Alisa wants to go ahead with lots of hope.

You can sign Ailsa’s petition for mothers’ name on marriage certificates, and read the stories, at: change.org/nameequality