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| Painting by Kalyani Vani |
According to the 2011 Indian census there are 623 million males and 586 million females in India. That offers a very messed up sex ratio of 940 females to 1000 males. As the story goes, the reason for this is mainly female feticide and infanticide. It’s sad that a girl starts experiencing discrimination before her birth in India. Yes, there are some other countries where is there is a pronounced preference for male child (mainly in Asia) but this account is focused on India in particular.
There are a large facets of life where women
in India face obstacles, the explicit instances being of course feticide, rape, bride burning, acid attacks, sexual harassment on the street – known as eve teasing or molestation, and dowry to name a few. However there are certain forms of conditioning that make women susceptible as well. Worse yet, many women themselves perpetuate such conditioning. The expectation that women should dress in a certain way to not attract attention from men, to keep the mens “libido” in check, since the onus of that lies on the woman doesn’t it? (Sarcasm alert!). To make sure she is obedient, servile to her parents and later to her husband – women who speak up are often dubbed as “out of control”, or “fast”. A married woman is expected to cook and clean, fast for the longevity of her husband, adopt her in-laws as her own parents, whilst not expecting her husband to do any of the above. If a woman is more educated than her husband she is constantly expected to manage his ego and expectations with tact. Having said all of this, women should be “cool” and “easy going” as well.. A woman who likes to have “fun” but also respect Indian traditions and religious mores. A woman who can get drunk in a bar but then be praying at the temple the next day as well. And if she is only at one end of the said spectrum? No that won’t fly. A woman who only likes drinking – nope she isn’t “homely” enough and a woman who only wants to visit temples? Nope, she isn’t fun enough. And needless to say, women try and fill up this expectation to the best of their ability without stopping to think about their individual wants and needs. I am not admonishing those who wish to do either, or both, only highlighting that perhaps thinking about what we want rather than doing what is expected and building our self-perception based on that should be avoided. First think then act, rather than the other way around.
We hear about the rights of the minorities, we debate about having an inclusive social policy, and a government that supports holistic development, not favouring any religious groups. While the number of men and women in India is different by 35 million (men in excess of women, 2011 Census), definitely considering the limited freedom and human rights enjoyed by women, they should be considered a minority group. Let us use a simple example to prove this. The various social ills that exist in the society that work to making the overall position of women in the society worse are roughly as follows:
Female Feticide
Eve teasing
Bride Burning
Dowry
Rape
Glass Ceiling
Unequal Pay for Equal Work
Conditioning/Social Expectation
This list is in no way exhaustive and can be expanded easily. However for the sake of argument, I will assume these 7 issues deprive women of freedom, human rights and reduce their overall social, political and economic well-being in the society. If I assume that each of these 7 issues reduces the equality of women to men in the society by 5% each:
So we have
7 x 5 % = 0.35;
If the number of women is X then (X – 0.35 X) would give us the net equivalent number of women factoring in the rights and freedom available.
So we have;
The number of actual women in India = 586 mn – 586 mn x 0.35 = 331 mn.
These assumptions and calculations basically are a simplified way of demonstrating that the social norms in a society can reduce the women population to half – for example, if there is no safety for women or rampant sexual harassment you will see less women in workforce which will translate to fewer women in social, economic and political domains. The idea is not to say that a woman is reduced in half, but rather her voice is curtailed due to the lack representation in various spheres, subjugation, conditioning and other patriarchal motives.
While the world average pay gap is 24% and Indian figure is similar (The Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016 report, and http://www.movehub.com/blog/global-gender-pay-gap-map), what is important is the narrative that prevents women from joining the work force ( 27% workforce pariticpation in 2012, UN gender Statistics and http://qz.com/238484/indias-record-in-womens-participation-in-the-workforce-is-depressing/)
To begin with, girls are always indoctrinated in being able to do housework, be nurturing, and are socialised into adopting the role of a caregiver and nurturer by virtue of being married eventually. Yes, studies and professional education is encouraged, but it is usually done to substantiate the womans credentials for attracting a potentially well-educated and economically endowed groom, or not at all (whereby you see family's dwindling interest in their daughters career paths). It is expected and acceptable for women to sacrifice her job, and pay, if the need may arise, to relocate near her husband. Now someon emay add that if she were to do this willingly, making a choice, and not out of coercion, can we still make the same argument? Yes, we can. The process of conditioning works like magic here. How is one to know what is right/wrong if the lens used to evaluate that right/wrong is broken? Another way to put it, if you are not endowed with skills to evaluate a certain issue because said issue is always a given – a constant, how would you know what is the converse of the issue at hand? If all I see when growing up are women cooking, cleaning, quitting their jobs to stay at home, being subservient, how am I to have any other metric for evaluating or doing otherwise even?
Let me perhaps conclude, if it is possible to bring such a discussion to a conclusion or a fruition – by saying that it is time for women to speak up. It has been too long that the identity of a woman, and her narratives as an individual have been secondary,secondary to her role as a daughter, wife, mother. But it time now for women to first understand and accept themselves as more than just people fulfilling a socially constructed concept (that of gender norms and expectations). .
It is time for the voices of women to be heard, for a new discourse laden with inquisitiveness and independence, and not just with words that have been heard before.
