Women Empowerment in India

Patriarchy:

• Patriarchy decides who has access to what, because it defines the relationship between men and women.
• These “small” inequalities, such as women setting aside the better part of the available food for men, can have a domino effect and precipitate into other forms of inequality.
• Son preference, dowry, harassment towards women (e.g., wife- battering, rape), unequal pay, unequal personal laws, religious oppression of women, and poor depictions of patriarchal practises apply to women in the media.

Women in Ancient-Medieval India

• Indian society has always revered women with many female deities Saraswati, Durga, Lakshmi, Kali, etc worshiped across the country. However, the patriarchal system has prevailed since the Vedic Period with customs and traditions favoring men.
• Apala, regarded as a brahmavadini, is a character mentioned in the Rig Veda.
• Indian history finds mention of many prodigious women such as Gargi, Maitreyi, and Sulabha, whose faculty of reasoning was far superior to that of ordinary mortals. Similarly, there have been female rulers like Prabhavatigupta, and Rani Durgavati in various parts of our country.
• On the darker side, with discrimination against them prevailing since ancient times, women have been silent sufferers.

Pre-Independence India

Socio-Religious Reforms Movements (19th Century)

• The beginning of organized efforts for the empowerment of women and gender equality in India can be traced back to the Socio-Religious Reforms Movements of the 19th century.
• Efforts made by social reformers such as Raja Rammohan Roy, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, and their related organizations helped the cause of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in India. (Sati Abolition Act of 1829, Widow Remarriage Act of 1856, Child Marriage Restraint Act (Sarda Act) of 1929, etc.)
• Savitri Bai Phule worked towards women empowerment.

Freedom Movement

• Gandhiji put particular emphasis on the collective mobilization and participation of women in India’s freedom struggle. He encouraged women to fight for political freedom as well as for their social and political rights.
• While this participation of women in national movements was not directly aimed at questioning the patriarchal society, it helped the cause of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in India by:
• While this participation of women in national movements was not directly aimed at questioning the patriarchal society, it helped the cause of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in India by:
• Breaking away several barriers of old traditions and customs.

 

Top 5 countries:

Position of India:

Bottom 5 countries as per Global Gender Gap report 2023

Women in Parliament:

Women in Legislative assembly:

Women in Government jobs:

Top 3 All India Ranks were achieved by female candidates in UPSC Civil Services Examination 2021.

Women in sports:

Women in corporates:

Domestic violence:

• The National Commission for Women said in 2020-21, it received 26,513 complaints from women, an increase of 25.09 per cent, compared with the 20,309 complaints registered in 2019-20.

Crime against women:

• Such as rape, acid attacks, dowry killings, honour killings, and the forced prostitution of young girls has been reported in India.

• TrustLaw, a London-based news service owned by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, ranked India as the fourth most dangerous place in the world for women to live based on a poll of 213 gender experts.
• Gender inequality:India ranks 122nd out of 191 countries in the Gender Inequality Index.

Feminisation of Poverty:

• The feminization of poverty has been used to illustrate differences between male and female poverty in a given context as well as changes in male and female poverty over time.
• Globally, 247 million women aged 15 years and older will be living on less than 1.90 U.S. dollars per day in 2021, compared to 236 million men.

Feminisation of Agriculture:

• The feminization of poverty has been used to illustrate differences between male and female poverty in a given context as well as changes in male and female poverty over time.

Missing women and unwanted girls:

• The term "missing women" indicates a shortfall in the number of women relative to the expected number of women in a region or country.
• Twenty-one million unwanted girls under the age of 25 in India. These girls are more precisely described as “less wanted” children. They are daughters that parents gave birth to when they were really hoping for a son.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy:

• Rammohan Roy as a youngster had witnessed such a heinous scene when his own sister-in-law was forcefully burnt at the pyre of his own brother.
• He vowed to stop such atrocities against women.
• It was due to the efforts of Raja Ram Mohan Roy that Lord William Bentick abolished the Sati system in 1829 by declaring it an offense.

UPSC Syllabus:

General Studies-1

• Role of Women and Women’s Organization: their problems and their remedies.
• Social Empowerment.

Some Previous Years Prelims Questions

Some Previous Years Mains Questions

Some Questions from this Year and Previous Years Interview Transcripts

What is the Meaning of women Empowerment?

Women’s empowerment in terms of UNESCWA is the process by which women become aware of gender-based unequal power relationships and acquire a greater voice in which to speak out against the inequality found in the home, workplace, and community.

In terms of World Bank,Empowerment is a process of change by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire this ability.

Women Empowerment happens by removing constraints that impede women’s and girls’ ability to determine and realize their goals. These constraints can be classified into three pillars:

• Agency – the capacity for goal-setting and follow-through, indicative of their level of self-efficacy and self-esteem.
• Resources – the inputs (such as capital, assets, tools, and information) that individuals have at their disposal to enable decision-making and actions to achieve their goals.
• Context – an enabling environment for equitable decision-making, including institutions and social arrangements.

Addressing constraints across these pillars can empower women to realize specific achievements, leading to gender equality.

Women’s empowerment perspective, within the ILO context, is to promote the equal position of women in the world of work, and to further that aim at one or more levels by:

• Promoting capacity building of women to enable them to participate equally in all societal activities and decision-making at all levels.
• Promoting equal access to and control over resources and the benefits of productive, reproductive, and community activities by affirmative action for women.
• Working to achieve equality and safe and respectful working conditions.
• Promoting and strengthening the capacity of women’s/ development organizations to act in favor of women’s empowerment and gender equality.
• Promoting changes in the socio-economic conditions in society that often subordinate women to men such as laws, educational systems, political participation, violence against women and women’s human rights.
• Making men aware of the significance of gender equality.

What are the Components of Women Empowerment?

According to the United Nations– Women’s empowerment has 5 components:

• Women’s sense of self-worth.
• Their right to have and to determine choices.
• Their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home.
• Their right to have access to opportunities and resources.
• Their ability to influence the direction of social change to create more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally.