Abstract
The age old problem of female related issues affecting the Indian society adversely continues to exist today in the 21st century. The advancement of new age, technology, scientific inventions, standard of life, and change in life style has failed to bring- in change of the mindset. The problem of female infanticide in India seems to be persistent. The alarming records collected by local, regional, national and international bodies only reflect the drastic decline in the male- female ratio. The matter is of serious concern and what is required is not only law but the change that each one has to bring- in understanding that when Nature was impartial in evolving man and woman, why has the society then brought about gender discrimination.
This paper is an attempt to discuss the present and future repercussions faced due to female infanticide. Since the society is reflected through literature, art and fiction, the writer has made an attempt to make a journey of today’s reality through Sujata Bhatt’s poem ‘Voice of the Unwanted Girl’ and Manish Jha’s motion picture, ‘Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women’ that is set in the 2050s.
…“missing” women “tell(s) us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess morality of women” . Though this statement seems to be “almost universal” according to Barbara Miller the problem holds immediate attention in the Indian context. Different types of problems heard unheard have been constantly making
In this short video and article on the topic of gendercide, reporter Elizabeth Vargas travels to India to found out from the people of India personally why there is such a shortage of females. She discovered that although aborting a fetus of a female child is illegal because of the shortage of females, families still continue to abort them because they don't want the burden that the baby girls brings. Vargas also discovered that illegal sex determination clinics can be found just about on every street. Men and their families also the wives to have sex determination tests and abort the baby if it’s female.
"Raising a daughter is like watering your neighbors’ garden.” That quote from a Hindu proverb.is referring to is how in some cultures when a daughter is old enough to be married, she leaves that family and joins her husbands'. So, raising a daughter in those cultures is seen as helping another family. Unlike females when a son is born he will stay and take care of the parents as they age. This son preference can lead to some countries committing gendercide. The act of gendercide is the mass killing of people because of their sex. Gendercide is a horrid trend that is due to the son preferences of many countries. Parents in Countries such as china and India have been killing there daughters. In India 25 percent of girls die before they can reach puberty. Also, 200 million women are missing because of being killed at a young age. There are many cultural causes of gendercide. The first is that boy babies are valued far more then female babies. Male children can carry on the family name, take care the parents when they get old and are less "expensive" to raise. In India there is a dowry system where in order for a woman to be married, the bride’s family must give gifts of money, land, livestock or other expensive items. This can put I strain on poorer families who cannot afford to pay a dowry or richer families who do not want to spend that type of money. So , when they have a girl child they either get an abortion or kill the child to save money. There was a Indian mother that
Mahasweta Devi’s short story, “Giribala,” is about the life of Giribala, a girl of Talsana village located in India. Born into a caste in a time when it was still customary to pay a bride-price, Giri is sold to Aulchand by her father. From this point on, we see a series of unfortunate, tragic events that take place in Giri’s life as a result of the circumstances surrounding Giri’s life. There are many issues in Giri’s life in India that Devi highlights to readers. First, the economic instability of the village leads to an extremely poor quality of life for the lower, working classes. Next, the cruel role of women determined by men in society is to either satisfy the sexual desires of men or to reproduce offspring who can work or be sold off to marriages. There are also other social norms and beliefs which discriminate against women that will be discussed.
All over the globe, violence and discrimination against women and girls violates their human rights and severely compromised their perception of equality. Culture, false beliefs and ancient traditions, such as early marriage, the nuclear family, gender-based discrimination, which lead to violence against women and femicide, destroyed young girls ' mental and physical wellbeing and self-esteem by supporting the ideas that gender-based discrimination and inequality is acceptable in our societies.
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,
People in India show a strong preference to not spend time raising girls. The sex birth ratio in India is one of the worst having 112 boys for every 100 girls born. Gill and Mitra-Kahn believe the reason for this lack of girls is due to
“Please don’t play your games with a helpless poor girl” declared Dhowli. The Misra boy leaned in closer to her replying, “I’m not playing games.” Dhowli then shouted back “ You’ll leave after you tire of the game, and what will become of me? Am I to be like Jhale? No, deota, not that.” (238). I’m hesitate to keep reading after this line thinking to myself how I feel sorry for Dhowli and who she is going to become since getting pregnant with a Misra boy who is dominant in the caste system. Dhowli creates an ambitious, courageous, and philosophical figure in the short story “Dhowli” by Mashasweta Devi. In the short story the caste system is well defined showing of social stratification of two opposite levels of the social chain in India. To an American reader the foreignness of how India treats single mothers is how this short story stands out.
India’s statistics are similar. According to the BBC “In 1961, for every 1,000 boys under the age of seven, there were 976 girls. Today, the figure has dropped to a dismal 914 girls. Although the number of women overall is improving (due to factors such as life expectancy), India's ratio of young girls to boys is one of the worst in the world after China. Many factors come into play to explain this: infanticide, abuse and neglect of girl children. But campaigners say the decline is largely due to the increased availability of antenatal sex screening, and they talk of a genocide”.
Female children are also regularly slaughtered (though the practice is illegal) and wives are mysteriously killed because their dowries weren’t enough. Fadiman aims to show the stark contrast between how men and women are treated when faced with poverty and the degradation of women in a society that values them not as people but as objects. She documents the lives of three rural women who are seeking to make a change in their society through family planning and sex education programs. These three women work as counselors with “rural medical practitioners”; men who are not licensed medical practitioners but handle most of the medical needs of rural villages. The film stresses that with the rising world population, curbing the Indian one is very important and allowing women equal access to
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.
Female infanticide has been accepted for centuries in many countries, and is more prominent in India and China than in any other countries around the world. It is illegal in India, however it is reported by Unicef that up to 50 million girls and women are “missing” in India as a result of systemic sex discrimination.
An often controversial issue within politics is how woman are viewed and treated in the Hindu religion. The role of woman in Hinduism is often disputed and positions range from quite reasonable to highly antagonistic. An often overlooked aspect is that, Hinduism is more of a way of life then a Religion. This is because Hinduism requires that we see the same reality in all the diversity of creation; that we see the same Self in all beings. Hindu women within this religion would view themselves as an important part of the family, but this is not shown through the contents of the Manusmriti. The Manusmriti directly translated is “Laws of Manu,” or “Institutions of Manu,” is regarded as the foundational
It is regrettable that female infanticide and foeticide are rapidly decreasing the female population throughout India. The main factors that is responsible for the increase in the incidence of female infanticide and foeticide is the low status of women, son preference, and the practice of dowry across all casts groups.
India is said to be the largest democracy in the world with its population of over one billion people. When coining the term democracy, one would think of a society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges. The largest gap of equality in Indian society is the inequality between Indian women and Indian men. India is ranked 87th out of 144 in the Global Gender Gap Index, illuminating the need for change in Indian culture. India has an immense way to go for its citizens to be given a true democracy. People of other countries would view India’s mistreatment of women worse in comparison to the rest of the world. Many films and works play on this notion, appealing to the West’s view on India. Many westerners view Indian women as slaves subjected to obey any command from the patriarchy. Many Hollywoodesque films and documentaries on India portray India as lawless, with Indian women turning into vigilantes to achieve justice. Although these films do present truth on the issues of separation between gender in India, they don’t touch on the progression India has made towards gender equality. Films such as Bandit Queen and Born Into Brothels focus on this idea that India’s gender issue is unresolvable unless foreign intervention occurs, however India is making progression through the collective efforts of many women, like Sampat Pal, and those involved in the Gulabi Gang illuminated in Pink Sari Revolution. India is not doomed to remain 87th in the Global Gender Gap,
There has been significant interest in development of robots capable of autonomous amphibious operations within turbulent ocean surf zones. Robot is a machine that can be controlled by computer which is designed to move, manipulate object and accomplish work while interacting with environment. Robots have been widely used to perform number of tasks which reduces the manual work specifically in remote areas where human accessibility is unimaginable. The main applications where the robots have exhibited their excellence include surveillance, tracking target for military purposes and also for disaster management like searching & rescuing victims. This system deals about evolutionary