Conducting Business in India According to the CIA World Fact Book and the World Bank, India’s trillion-dollar economy has been ranked fourth worldwide and is the second most populated country in the world (n.d.). These statistics provide adequate indicators to corporations and aspiring entrepreneurs that India has potential within the world market. Since the reforms of the 1990s, India has embraced the concept of globalization and the open-market. GlobalEDGE (n.d.) identified these reforms to include “increasingly liberal foreign investment and exchange regimes, industrial decontrol, deductions in tariffs and other trade barriers, opening and modernization of the financial sector, significant adjustments in government monetary and …show more content…
The authors claim that women have not achieved equality with men in any country on the globe. India is certainly not an exception. In fact, the culture of India is deeply rooted in the beliefs that women should involve themselves in household rather than business-related activities (Rao, Rao, Ganesh, 2011). The women of India who have broken through the barriers of cultural attitudes and norms are not, however, viewed in a derogatory light in the country as long as they maintain a substantial economic status. According to the authors, women who are economically independent are viewed as free and it is the economic status of a woman, not politics, that determines her freedom (Rao, Rao, Ganesh, 2011). History, dating back to the third millennium B.C., has even been recorded with women in such a high status that Indian men were not allowed to perform some religious and social rituals without the woman. The position of wife was considered a place of honor during some periods in Indian history to the extent that women were actually considered equal to men far more so than they are today. As time passed and India experienced social, economic, and political changes, women were demoted from their places of honor and even from their high status jobs in education and were made to become completely dependent on men (Rao, Rao, Ganesh, 2011). This dependence is the chasm out of which they are yearning to climb and break free.
According to Hinduism the female was created by Brahman as part of the duality in creation, to provide company to men and facilitate procreation, progeny and continuation of family linage. The Vedas suggest that a woman’s primary duty is to help her husband in performing obligatory duties and enable him to continue his family tradition. Her primary duty is to give birth to his children and take care of them. Hinduism is a predominantly male dominated religion. Woman play a secondary role. The situation is gradually changing. It is difficult to draw generalizations about the status of present day Hindu women because of society is complex. In general, life in cities is much different from life in the rural areas. Those who live abroad live in different conditions than those who live in the country. Yet, we have ample indications that women are still subject to many restrictions and disabilities in rural area as well as urban areas. The financial independence of woman and the education levels of the family play an important role in this regard. Women in urban areas face numerous challenges in their professions and personal lives. But overall, life is better for them compared to the past. Love marriage outside of the caste or community are scorned and sometimes the couples are killed or excommunicated by the elders in the family or village. Widows can now have a life of their own and even remarry. They draw a lot of sympathy. But
Indian men celebrated women’s roles in food providing and child bearing in religious ceremonies (64). Indian women unlike the English women of the seventeenth century had a voice. She was treated more as an equal. Even though there was still gender separation between Indian men and Indian women, in the responsibilities they share, the women were more respected. Indian women still didn’t have easy lives.
As a result of these reviews, the ongoing reconstruction of the social status and roles of Hindu women has brought about many new changes in Hinduism. Some of these changes include changes in education, health measures, problems of early marriages, the positions of widows, and the representation of women in governing bodies (Desai, et al., 1995). For example, within Hinduism now,
In the typical Indian family, gender construction manifests itself especially in the roles of men and women in the household. As Judith Lorber so aptly put, “gender is a process of creating distinguishable social statuses for the assignment of rights and responsibilities” which in turn, creates the social differences that define a “man” and “woman” (Lorber). It is these differences that are used to construct and maintain an established gender order within the family. In the conventional Indian family, the order is such that the roles of the women in the household revolve around the roles of the men. This structure was something that I saw from an early age in my parents’ marriage. Though my parents defied the Indian norm of the arranged marriage, they still represented the quintessential model of an Indian couple in many other ways. My mother left her job to become a stay-at-home mom when I was about six years old. However, even before she left her job, she was implicitly expected by my father to shoulder most of the housework including cooking, cleaning, and caring for my older brother
Previously, women have existed in a society ruled by man and have been put under the expectation to be at home raising the children and taking care of the home, while men were expected to go to work and provide for the family. Since the beginning of civilization, women have been victims to prejudice that eventually “compelled women at last to throw off the political, economic, intellectual and social shackles that bound them” (Joshi 13). The complexity of women’s hardship during the nineteenth century, in the fight for equality, resulted in many women getting arrested and looked down upon from their communities. Although the consequences seem treachery, many women risked their livelihood and pushed forth determination and will power to
Gender inequality has been a dominant and consistent struggle of human culture since its existence. To this day, women constantly face oppression, unjust treatment, and less opportunities. For centuries, women have played inferior roles compared to men, especially in marriage. When a man and a woman would wed, it was understood that the woman would serve her husband’s needs and demands. Over the centuries of human existence, however, many feminists and progressive revolutionaries demanded change in the treatment of females.
Women are married young, become mothers quickly, and are burdened by stringent domestic and financial responsibilities. Like in Greece, they have little chance to progress in the work force. Females, in certain regions of India, are frequently malnourished since they are the last member of the household to eat typically and the last to receive medical attention. Also, only “54 percent of Indian women are literate as compared to 76 percent of men” (Gender Equity Issues in India). Unlike in Greece, women of lower status still receive little schooling, and suffer from “unfair and biased inheritance and divorce laws” (Gender Equity Issues in India).
In today’s society, women impact the world around them in many different and significant ways. Some women influence their communities with great force while others never notice their true importance in their societies. In India, Mishri Yadav is bound to her life as a modest, confined woman who cannot talk to men and must remain in the shadows. In the United States, Michele Noonan is bound to her life as a caretaker for her family who can express herself in whichever way she feels. These two defined people show the importance of how women are viewed extremely different as their countries vary. Some women, such as those in India, are viewed as lower than men with less value, knowledge, and potential. These places do not believe that women contain
Throughout history, women have been treated as a subordinate. Especially in marriage, women have been taught to think of themselves merely as housewives as their ultimate achievement in life. With this, “Patriarchy is the prime obstacle to women’s advancement and development” (Sultana). The broad principle of men being in control keeps women dominated and subordinate. Patriarchy is characterized by current and historic unequal power relations between women and men whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed. Accordingly, the male-dominated system existing today forces women to merely accommodated in it in a variety of ways. Traditionally, men went to work and women stayed home to take care of the children. With this, the ideas that the woman’s place was in the home and the glorification of a very traditional role for the woman emerged. Women were celebrated as being pure and submissive while the man’s role was a more aggressive, greedy, competitive one. Many traditional norms follow a basic rule that men are dominant in status and power, so they should be the protective provider, while women should be obedient and
Globalization has been an integral part of India’s progress. It has opened up new avenues for growth.
Traditionally, an Indian woman had only four roles and those were; Her role as a daughter, wife, sister, and lastly, a mother. The women in today’s time however are experiencing far reaching changes and are entering into new fields that were unknown to them. They are actively participating in social, economic and political activities. Unlike the older times, women today have received higher education.
Before the independent colonization of India, the roots of tradition were so thick that being anything other than what was expected from your gender, class, and education level, was odd. Scary, even. In a time and place where women aren’t considered useful for much other than birthing children and feeding said children, Rukmani, a child bride with a good education, a strong will, and a modernized mentality, is struggling to find happiness in a world where she is being thrown curveball after curveball. In this tale of odd in an even world, Kamala Markandaya writes to show how breaking from cultural norms can create a better life for Rukmani and her family.
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
Recently throughout the United States and other countries, there has been a sudden epiphany that women should be treated just as fairly as men. This is a shocking notion, indeed. How dare women have equal rights; what is this the twenty-first century? Lately, feminists everywhere have been supporting their fellow women and pushing for equality. They have taken to the streets and have marched so their cause can be heard, and even the media has been showing its support for the ladies out there, striving to make things right. Music artists such as Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift have been supportive of this new wave of feminism, releasing songs that have strong and suggestive lyrics about female independence. Also, the popular online social networks, like Twitter and Instagram, have been depicting celebrities supporting the “Treat boys and girls the same” campaign, which pushes for impartiality for girls and boys, starting from a young age. With all of this mass media attention, it is sure to spark up some reform; and it has. Journalists Rina Chandran and Bibhudatta Pradhan’s article “India 's Women 's Vote Becomes More Independent”, of the Bloomberg Business newspaper, has recently discussed how women in India have begun to defy traditional gender roles and vote in the recent elections. Even though these women have been taught to obey their husbands’ every command, some have decided to defy this conditioning and vote, even against their husbands’ wishes.
Feminism in India is a set of movements which defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and social rights and equal opportunities for Indian women. Feminist criticism was not inaugurated until late in the 1960s.Behind it, however lie two centuries of struggle for the recognition of women’s cultural roles and achievements and for women’s social and political rights marked by such books as Mary Wollstone Craft’s A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women (1792), John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection Of Women (1869), and the American Margaret Fuller’s Women in The Nineteenth Century