INTRODUCTION: Men and women are equal and play key roles in the inception and growth of their households, as well as society as a whole. Indeed, the fight for equality has been one of the most important objectives of the women’s movement around the world. There is no difference in popularity based on sex or physical appearance. The woman is the man’s equal, and there is no longer any inferior complex. In India, women have been regarded as an oppressed segment of society for a long time, and they have been overlooked for hundreds of years.
In India, gender inequality is a critical reality. In today’s world, women are performing exceptionally well in a variety of fields. The majority of Indian women are still subjected to prejudice and gender imbalance. In comparison to other countries, India has a larger gender gap. The gender gap index is one of the multi-dimensional gender inequality metrics.
Despite relatively high rates of economic growth, India’s progress towards gender equality has been unsatisfactory, as judged by its place on rankings such as the Gender Development Index.
While India’s GDP has increased by roughly 6% in the last decade, female labor force participation has decreased significantly, from 34% to 27%. The earnings disparity between men and women has remained around 50%. (A recent survey found a 27 percent salary disparity between men and women in white-collar positions.)
A PREFERENCE FOR SONS: In India, patrilocality (married couples living with or near the husband’s parents) and patrilineality (inheritance through male descendants) are two cultural institutions that play a key role in preserving gender disparity and gender-appropriate behavior.
Daughters suffer as a result of a culturally engrained parental preference for sons, which stems from their function as caregivers for aging parents.
Another institution that disempowers women is the dowry system, which involves a financial or in-kind transfer from the bride’s family to the groom’s at the time of marriage. Dowry payments, which are frequently a significant portion of a family’s income, have been progressively increasing over time in all areas and social strata.
These behaviors encourage parents to avoid having girl children or to spend less on their daughters’ health and education. In India, increasingly masculine sex ratios reflect such parental desires. Despite the fact that sex determination is illegal in India, there were 919 girls under the age of six every 1000 boys in 2011.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Gender gaps in India persist despite economic growth, indicating that legislative actions to empower women are plainly needed.
The current literature includes examples of policy changes that have been successful in the past. A one-of-a-kind policy experiment in village-level governance, mandating one-third female representation in positions of local leadership, has yielded positive outcomes.
Women’s preferences are better represented in communities governed by women, according to evaluations of this affirmative action program, and women are more confident in reporting offenses that they may have previously deemed too stigmatizing to bring to notice.
THE SOLUTION: It is vital to invest in and empower females by providing them with education, life skills, sports, and other opportunities.
We may collectively contribute to the achievement of certain outcomes through improving the value of girls, some short-term (expanding access to school, reducing anemia), others medium-term (stopping child marriage), and others long-term (ending child marriage) (eliminating gender-biased sex selection).
Men, women, and boys must all work together to change the way females are valued. It will need to activate a wide range of social groups. The rights of all Indian girls and boys will be realized only when society’s viewpoint changes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1523422316630651?journalCode=adha
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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