Gender Equality In India

Using the elements of fiction and truth a mass amount can be gained from understanding how women fit in with the government/patriarchy. From novels comparably, A Passage to India and A Handmaid’s Tale, these two reflect different times: a realistic time of Indian Imperialism and a Utopian fantasy that could indubitably become the future of tomorrow. How do they correspond with the role of women? Both either represent or differ from the true, unseen representation of women amongst the power of the elite, against the suppressors of the minority, and the

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

Women of all race, age, ethics, and careers will always be in need of protection from Title IX. Hopefully we won't need a law for equality in the future. I really think women are coming up so much in the world though. Women are making differences everyday. New life opportunities are possible thanks to Title IX. Try and take a moment to imagine being a women before Title IX was thought of! We would still be considered just people to cook, clean and care for kids. Nothing more than that. Nothing more than just a person under Men's control. We can not be controlled by Men anymore. We Women can accomplish so much more than that, given the privileges from Title IX.

The United Nations Millennium Declaration states that the main focus should be on gender equality and empowerment of women in order to fight poverty, hunger and with that, help development that is sustainable. (O’Brien & Williams 2013,212) Taking gender into the account while observing global economy shows that men and women are impacted in various ways considering trade, production and financial flows. (O’Brien & Williams 2013,212)

Equality is an enormous topic when it comes to our society and it has been for a long time. Today everything is a lot more equal between race and economic classes but it is still a concern today. The main topic about male and female equality is such a major subject it is one of the most talked about social issues in America, and in the past few years more than ever.

Indian culture before the transformation of globalization was a male dominated society with very little respect or regard for females. According to India’s constitution, women are legal citizens of the country and have equal rights with men (Indian Parliament), however due to lack of acceptance from the male dominated society; Indian women have suffered immensely prior to globalization (Tripod, n.d.). Indian culture after the transformation of globalization has had an innervation of mass media, most prominent being satellite television bringing images and dialogue from countless other cultures. This global influence has started to turn the tables in the marked sexist roles in Indian culture prior to globalization.

In India, regionalism, class, and communalism had become the fuel of politics. In such a diverse yet democratic country all aspects of economic development were enormously contentious. This can be seen from a glance at two central issues in development, birth control and women’s rights. Women’s right was also caught up in the maelstrom of Indian politics. There has a proliferation of women’s groups encourage by the UN Decade of Women in 1970s, which suggested that the status of women had actually declined since independence. One success of the activists was a campaign against “dowry murders”, which is killing young wives in domestic fires started by their in-laws for financial gain. 1

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.

The value of a woman’s existence is the equivalent of a roach… or so it seems. Ashok Prasad’s India: A Dangerous Place to Be a Woman 2013 documentary is led by a British-Indian journalist, Radha Bedi, who films her visit to India to shed light on the reality of life for Indian women. Radha has visited the country times before; but only as an outsider, so she walks oblivious to how the other side lives. Radha blindly journeys to India and pulls back the curtain to reveal the truth. She adopts a mournful tone in order to get her learning audience to sympathize. She is effective at establishing her purpose of informing the audience by using narrative to tug at the audience’s emotions, contrast the two societies, and exemplification incorporating sourced statistics.

Throughout the past few decades, the gender inequality discourse have became a dominant feature of international, national and local policy debate on the subject of economic development. This policy concern has emerged as an area of scholarly research which seeks to show that improving gender equity leads to economic growth.

Despite 44 laws targeted towards the protection of women, crime rate statistics show that women are still very much at risk, evidenced by the Thomson Reuters Trust Law indicator which ranked India as ‘the worst G20 country in which to be a woman’ and the fact that one woman in India dies every hour because of dowry-related crimes, reported in 2013 by LifeNews.com. There isn’t a simple explanation as to why the laws are being broken, ignored, and have failed to be upheld in court.

The gender equality model includes eight areas: work, money, knowledge, time, power, health, multiple inequalities and violence. The first six areas form the main gender equality index. The remaining two are additional areas that were not included in the main index because they describe phenomenon that belongs not for the whole public, but rather to a specific group of society, such as violence against women or gender inequality in specific groups of society, such as people with disabilities, single parents, etc. Each area is divided into following: areas of work: participation in the labour market and segregation, quality of working conditions; monetary area: financial resources and economic situation; the field of knowledge: achievements and segregation, lifelong learning, etc. The gender equality index in the area of employment analyses the level of employment of women and men and their distribution in so-called "female" occupations (education, health, social care). Another important aspect is considered and evaluated and that is working conditions, quality. This is an important area of gender inequality, as women generally have fewer opportunities to raise qualifications and take care of their professional career due to family and job conflict, and this situation results in even greater segregation in the labour market. This is despite the fact that in the Treaty of Lisbon the Member States have committed themselves to achieve equality between men and women in the labour

Gender inequality is undeniably outdated in today’s society, but this does not mean that it is non-existent. Through the ages, women all around the world have been mistreated and denied of basic fundamental rights. As we move forward in the 21st century, there have been several movements such as Emma Watson’s “He for She” which empower women to fight for their rights. Both India and Canada are countries which are changing to involve women in education, government and the general workforce, but the success in both countries varies. Canada is a developed nation which has been progressing on the path of gender equality for over a century, whereas India is a developing nation which is slowly moving in the same direction. The vast disparity in women’s rights in these countries can be seen by comparing the degree of education, presence in the workforce and overall respect women have in both these countries.

For many years now, the question of gender equality has been one of the most controversial issues in several societies. Different regions have put the effort in ensuring women get as equal chances as their counterpart gender, whereas some of the areas in the world have completely shunned the issue. Back then, women were considered property and were not allowed equal rights as men especially when it comes to education, job opportunities among several other issues. The United States has put in place various policies that enable females to have equal opportunities as men. The country has tried to make an effort to ensure equality of resources and opportunities regardless of one’s gender. Nonetheless, most areas have not fully embraced the fact that men and women are equal. In fact, some bosses disqualify applicants of jobs on the basis of gender. To date, women are still discriminated against on several issues. This discussion entails a few examples of discrimination against women. With each problem, it shall attempt to provide a solution to each problem.

Although gender equality has continued to drastically improve over the years, a glass ceiling still exists. Recent research continues to illustrate that the barriers that professional females face in today’s society is tremendous. While the barriers and challenges that professional women face is well documented, it is also critical to evaluate the perceptions of those barriers held by women. In education, men often hold leadership positions. Statistically, superintendents almost always come from teaching backgrounds. When the majority of teachers are female, it is intriguing to ask why the male teaching population tends to be of the select few who ultimately rise to higher leadership positions.