Despite the remarkable economic progress and rapid development that India has seen in recent decades, gender equality remains an issue.
Despite relatively rapid economic growth, India’s progress in measuring its progress toward gender equality has been disappointing.
It is a shame that India had slipped four places from gender parity since 2006 when the WEF’s first report on the gender gap began. That woman’s makeup 48% of India’s population but is unequal beneficiaries of the growth story shows that shiny India has a dark underbelly.
The statistics suggest that India has more women than it should have, gender outcomes – specific abortions – lag statistics on women’s access to reproductive health, education, and employment.
Even though the constitution of India grants equal rights to men and women. The ever increasing presence of women in the political and economic system should have meant higher normality for women. But the principle of equality has not flourished in Indian life until recently, and there is little evidence of the changes it has brought that I will try to describe here.
As a nation, we aspire to be the global power of the future, and as a society, we must realize the limitless privileges that go hand in hand with gender equality.
As a society, we must create a climate in which there is no gender discrimination, and it gives women the right to make their own decisions and take part in the social, political, and economic life of our country. The world is moving towards an era of equilibrium, and we are making progress towards a world of equal rights for women and equal opportunities for men.
Gender equality is not a mandate for grassroots women’s organizations alone, but it should be the concern of everyone, as in Kerala. It is an urgent mandate in a society that cannot develop if we exclude half the population.
Dhruv Kanabar of Cambridge University argues that the only targeted domestic solution is to combat the social norms and deeply rooted cultural attitudes that limit women’s empowerment in India. Developing a society of gender equality ultimately transforms the esteem of girls and women in India in the deepest sense, not only in terms of their economic status but also in terms of their political and social status.
Instead, it is the heinous acts that symbolize the lack of respect for women and girls in India and the need to act on the ground. Equality means that women and girls are treated, valued, and given preferential treatment regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We discriminate against Indian working women, especially where pay disparities are high, such as in the public sector.
India’s economic power could be strengthened by providing women with adequate health care, education, and economic opportunities so they would be better represented in the country’s political institutions.
Educating Indian children at an early age about the importance of gender equality could have been a useful start in this direction. Laws and welfare systems are the keys to achieving gender parity in India’s political, economic, and social institutions. It estimates the economic impact of gender equality within India will be at $700 billion of additional GDP by 2025.
Education for girls and boys is one of the most efficient and effective ways to combat global poverty and build equality.
Gender equality is the first step towards a just and sustainable society. Numbers, culture should not dictate the concept of equality or gender equality alone. Equality means equal access to health care, education, and economic opportunities for all.
What equality in the economic sphere requires is complex, since it takes several positions into account that justify a reversal of equality under the assumption of equality. One objection to equality frequently mentioned in this section on simple equality is the other and more fundamental criticism planned by the non-egalitarians at the first level that equality does not play a fundamental role as the basis for a claim to justice.
For this reason, it helps to reflect on equality as a question of inequality as a question of social justice and the complex set of principles that form the fundamental core of today’s egalitarianism. First, equality is an external value derived from the values it must have as values, such as equal opportunities, freedom, justice, and freedom of expression.
As men, it’s our social and moral duty towards the society that we shouldn’t let women feel deprived of equal rights.
In this fight for women’s equal status, we as men too shall fight for their cause. In the end, what Malala Yousafzai said about women equality “We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back” seems to be so true.
The writer Wasil Manzoor is a south Kashmir based student, who is currently pursuing IMBA from IUST