According to the Article 15 of Indian Constitution of India 1949:

 Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth

(1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex and place of birth or any of them

(2) No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to

(a) Access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and palaces of public entertainment; or

(b) The use of wells, tanks, bathing Ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public

(3) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children

(4) Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of Article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribe.

For many people, discrimination is an everyday reality. Discrimination is the unfair treatment based on characteristic such as race, gender, age. Discrimination is found everywhere. In some countries women, unlike men, cannot dress as they like, drive, work at night, inherit property or give evidence in Court. The vast majority of expressly discriminatory laws in force relate to family life, including limiting a woman’s right to marry (or the right not to marry in cases of early forced marriages), divorce and remarry, thus allowing for sex discriminatory marital practices such as wife obedience and polygamy. Laws explicitly mandating “wife obedience” still govern marital relations in many States.

Equal Importance should be given to men and women. Employees or potential employees may face direct and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination is where someone with a personal characteristic is treated unfairly because of that personal characteristic. This could include not giving a female a promotion because they are female, pregnant or breastfeeding. Indirect discrimination occurs when  a requirement or practice that purports to treat everyone the same becomes unreasonable due to the individual’s circumstances and ends up actually or potentially disadvantaging someone with a personal characteristic that is protected by the law. An example of this would be rule that states that all employees must work night shifts.

As all employees must work these shifts, it may seem a fair rule. However, this could be seen as indirect discrimination if there are other shifts available that would be more supportive of employees who are breastfeeding or who have family responsibilities. Employees who are breastfeeding may experience discrimination at work if employers do not provide reasonable measures to assist or support breastfeeding. By not providing breastfeeding and expressing facilities and flexible lactation breaks an organisation may be discriminating against breastfeeding women and may be breaking the law.

Recent developments in feminist politics in India indicate growing concern with under-representation of women in elected and decision-making bodies, as well as with the view that some form of reservation or affirmative action is needed to redress existing gender imbalances.

The current demand for parliamentary representation of women is built around several arguments and equal opportunity for participation in decision-making is one of them. Women’s interests and priorities are said to be neglected in a male dominated parliament and their presence is expected to make a qualitative difference in increasing the empathy for their concerns. 

Women’s Reservation Bill is a pending bill in the Parliament of India which proposes to amend the Constitution of India to reserve 33 percent seats in the lower house of the parliament, Lok Sabha, and in all state legislative assemblies for women.

We also need a fundamental change in our mindsets. We need a new social reform movement, for gender equality and empowerment of our women – a movement that changes society’s attitude towards women.

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.

If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.

Do follow me on Facebook, Twitter  Youtube and Instagram.

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If you would also like to contribute to my website, then do share your articles or poems at adv.aishwaryasandeep@gmail.com

We also have a Facebook Group Restarter Moms for Mothers or Women who would like to rejoin their careers post a career break or women who are enterpreneurs.

We are also running a series Inspirational Women from January 2021 to March 31,2021, featuring around 1000 stories about Indian Women, who changed the world. #choosetochallenge