Gender Relations and Inequality in India

Gender inequality is displayed in many countries around the globe. In India, the society begins gendering as soon as a child is born. In most cases, the birth of a daughter is unwelcome but that of a son is celebrated. The boys are brought up bold and outgoing while the girls are expected to be at home and do chores. While the other discriminations like economic or social discriminations are present outside the home, but gender discrimination is present outside and inside households. In a familial setup, the father is the head of the family and decision maker. The mother generally performs the ‘home making’. Even if the woman is employed, she is expected to do the domestic chores, in addition to her job. Even though she earns, she does not have the freedom to plan her salary or decide anything.

There has been much publicity about the lives of women in India and how they are regarded. I would like to explore this topic in order to clarify and organize the abundance of information that has been in the media and in publications. I will focus this this topic comparing two countries, India and the US. Both are democratic countries and both have some forms of inequality. I will start by giving background information about both of the country’s political and cultural systems when relevant and the inequalities. This will produce the answer to which of the two states has made more improvements in the area, my dependent variable. Then I will go on to the bulk of the research in explaining the causes of the improvements or lack thereof which will be which will be the independent variables.

Gender inequality throughout the world will not start to improve unless we start at the source of the issue. Overall there are many gender inequalities that are geared towards women that will not start to change unless they are corrected at a young age. Girls and women are proven to be disadvantaged in education systems in most parts of the world (“UNESCO Joins Partners…”). Some people argue that gender equality is not the biggest issue in the world because boys also can be disadvantaged. For example, of the boys that are out of school in South and West Asia, 16% of them are unlikely to ever start school (“Girls’ Education and…”). While there are cases in some parts of the

Gender inequality has been a crucial issue throughout the years all around the world for the past few decades. Women are mistreated and often oppressed by patriarchal societies. Women’s rights are often dismissed and it is believed that women are not capable of being independent which has highly affects women population.

In the world today, there are also many countries that consider women to be in a lower social class than men. In fact, on January 22 last year, the Indian Times released this statement: “A kangaroo court last Sunday decided that the victim be raped by 10 men as she had committed a crime by having an affair outside the community. The tribal heads had found that the sin of the 20-year-old can be only undone if she gets raped by 10 tribal men.” Gender inequality is not just seen in India, but also around the world. They are denied any power or any string that ties them to being a valued human life. In Saudi Arabia, women are denied a driver's license. In China, female babies are being killed because of the “one-child” policy and their preference

Between the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and particularly England, the enlightenment movement was developing; new ideas were being explored about the human condition. The restraints of the class system were starting to fray. The signs of change in social status within sections of the population grew. It was in the merchant class and the middle classes where the drive for equality was strongly expressed. This culmination of these thoughts widened in the 18th Century spawning the ideas that all men could express independence of mind and action. There were emerging social, political movements that indicated changes in the philosophical base of society. Social equity had become the cry of the masses. The industrial revolution added to the

The discrimination of a female in the developing Indian society begins at the determination of sex. Compared to their male counterparts, at the determination of the fetus, females are more susceptible to being aborted by the mother. According to T.V.Sekher and Neelambar Hatti: “recent studies of female infanticide, new biases in sex ratios at birth and infant and child mortality rates indicate that extreme forms of daughter discrimination resulting in death have persisted (Miller 1981: Coale and Bannister 1994)” (Sekher, Hatti). This discrimination is acted through many forms during early life. Discrimination can be represented by choice infanticide and/or sex-based abortion. Within developing India there is a low

The heterogeneity of the Indian experience reveals that there are multiple patriarchies, contributing to the existence of multiple feminisms. Hence, feminism in India is not a singular theoretical orientation; it has changed over time in relation to historical and cultural realities, levels of consciousness, perceptions and actions of individual

In India, there are many groups who affect the human race either gender like women by many aspects of sexism and violence. This means that there are reasons for sexism in India. Moreover, There is specific research on sexism mostly in favour of men over women. We find that in India there are many social issues of violence against women. The constitution of India has granted men and women equal rights, gender disparity still remains. Gender discrimination violates is a fundamental right so this human right is given to all human in the world from baby to adult not only for men but also for all women.

India’s gender roles are similar to Japan, where “a woman’s sole purpose in life is to devote her life to her husband and children…[and] are thought to eat and do nothing” (Pitlane). In the farm areas of India, one would see the woman gathering crops by hand, while the man uses the farm equipment. However, as modernization occurs, it is seen that “it is becoming increasingly regular to see women enjoying income earning jobs and developing independence” and that they are trying to improve their status in society (Pitlane).

An analysis of example can be derived from the aforementioned discriminatory sexist roles in India that prior to globalization highly favored the male population verses the female population. The female population in India has previously been less than second class citizens. Indian women's cultural roles have been previously defined by traditional customs that are centuries old and no longer apply in this day and age. Previous to globalization, Indian women were to take total domestic responsibility. They were not allowed formal education as the majority of teachers and pupils were male, and the chances of a female remaining chaste was slim in those settings, and related to tradition, females

Social status and structures have definitely shaped the construction and experience of gender inequality. Men and women are constantly analyzed, compared, and grouped together in society. The result of this yields discrepancies in how sexes are viewed by society. Throughout my examination and explanation of gender inequality, I concluded both men and women are victims to gender inequality.

Since the time of partition India has become a country for men. There’s no doubt in that women are being respected in any of the way they should be. They have been and still are treated as a medium of men's personal reasons. Men are always considered to be tough and unemotional whereas the other side, women are considered soft and full of emotions. There’s a saying that what we see is not the truth always. women are the toughest being on the earth because they give birth to new life and since the time women are being disrespected they feel so unfortunate to give birth to a man because of quite obvious

Living with dignity without any discrimination based on sex community place of birth is presumed to be the basic structure of Indian constitution. Women lived in India under the dominance of man and always suppressed for their rights. The rights guaranteed to the women are at par with the rights of men and in some cases the women have been allowed to enjoy the benefit of certain special provisions “in the interest of women and children” through state legislation and affirmative action. The reservations for women in politics and employment have played a key role in putting up the status of women in the main stream of the society.

The purpose of this research, as indicated by the title, “Working Women and their Monetary Control in the Household” is to understand the economic role of working women in the household in contemporary Indian families. The term “working women” here implies to those women who work outside their homes for remunerative purposes, that is, they get a wage in return for their labour. As defined by Wikipedia, a household “consists of one or more people who live in the same dwelling and also share meals or living accommodation and may consist of a single family or some other grouping of people” (“A household”, 2015). Economic activity outside the house has not just been the job of the male members in the household. In rural India, most women who belong to peasant families, work in the fields as well as take charge of the activities of the household. Post the 1990s; more were created as a result of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG) policies by the government. As a result, more and more women are getting employed in various jobs, whether in the public or private sector or self-employment. This could ultimately imply financial control and independence for such working women. But contrary to common understanding, that working women