Gender Discrimination

Team Members:  Divyansh Guwalani, Achintya Bhatnagar

"Short-changing girls is not only a matter of gender discrimination; it is bad economics and bad societal policy. Experience has shown, over and over again, that investment in girls' education translate directly and quickly into better nutrition for the hole family, better health care, declining fertility, poverty reduction and better overall economic performance"  -  Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General

Gender discrimination and patriarchal domination has shown us today a case to be study in a wide range of scope. Many human rights institutes and other forth runner frontal organizations have taken many serious steps towards human dignity, including gender discrimination, for liberty and for human rights violation in the region a long time ago. Though a particular reflections in regarding the gender crisis has not been measured in the region, despite peoples' local voices against the gender humiliation and so on, a wide spread discrimination has already been dominated the contiguous regions of the state. When we discuss the gender discrimination, we could never ignore the root cause of the matter, which is still remained in a negligible status, the girls' right. We all have gone through many known crisis and disputes, and moreover gender discrimination. But we left to focus the discrimination of girl rights, which is the basic case study of the gender discrimination. 

Bar chart with male and female secondary school net attendance rate in India

Falling number of girls born in India since 1961

SURVEY

For the purpose of the study small scale field survey was conducted among 10 rural women belonging to a small village near Kasoli. To overcome poverty, these women in the households were engaged in income generating activities like domestic servants, laborer in the brick field and in the agricultural activities, and all other seasonal activities available in the rural set up. The study was conducted recently.

The women were randomly selected. They were asked a structured set of questions designed for conducting a survey on gender discrimination. Finally, the below mentioned findings are deduced on analyzing the collected information.

DIVISION OF WORK IN THE FAMILY

Most women had multiple roles to fill within their family and community. They had a major biological role in reproduction. Independent of this, the family roles of women often result in very heavy workloads. The frequent combination of these roles creates a major challenge for women to cope with. The family roles of women generally include major responsibility within the household of care for the other members, involving household management, food preparation, cleaning duties, obtaining health care, education and supervision of children. In addition to this family role, they have productive income producing activities.It was found that the woman’s work day was longer than a man’s in all the cases. Women had less leisure or discretionary time available than men.

UTILIZATION OF MONEY

Men mainly played a dominating role in their families, most of them spent their earnings for the purpose of their own. They mainly spent money drinking alcohol day and night. So, in question of reliability, women did not depend on their husbands as the head of the household and handled all the economic affairs of the household. Besides, in question of peace and security of the household, few men used to beat their wives in case of differences of opinions, so women tried to avoid them in respect of any interior household decisions. Most women invested their income for medical treatment of their own and child that is, 9 women when asked spent their earning money for family needs such as medical purpose for own and other family members and for education of the child. Only 1 women had a savings account who thought of having a secured future.

EDUCATION AND GENDER

Education has the most persuasive impact on the development of women. In India, even after almost five decades of constitutional provision of free and compulsory education to children, a large proportion of them remain illiterate. In these families, most male members were literate but the females were illiterate.7 out of 10 females were illiterate while most of their husbands were educated. So, they easily dominated the female members due to their ignorance, absence of awareness. Majority of girl children in countryside are first generation students, whose parents may be illiterate. Often they do not get the parental support or guidance required for coping with formal education. They lack learning materials. Moreover, in some cases children from villages are not properly clothed. For girls, formal schooling is more difficult because traditional attitudes do not favor long term education. Even those few who manage to secure a college degree are disillusioned when they fail to get employment.

PRACTICE OF GENDER SOCIALIZATION

Discrimination is also seen in social customs and habits. Most of the mothers were conscious about their daughters’ socialization than boys. They thought that girls must be protected from any miss affairs of the society and must be trained about day to day routine work of household activities. The insecurity and atrocities outside the household discourage the necessity of education and any engagement with the outside world for girl child. They work at home, look after siblings and assist their mothers in the respective economic field. 8 out of 10 women took companionship of their girl child to get relief from heavy work load and to earn extra money in their respective economic field. The girl child’s expertness at household activities is indicated for themselves as good qualities regarding the decision of their matrimonial relations.

CONCLUSION

Throughout the world, women play a critical and contributory role in national economic growth and development. Their contributions have a lasting impact on household and communities, and it is women who most directly influence family nutrition and the health and education of their children. Giving women equal rights and opportunities can only serve to enhance this contribution and to bring us closer to the goal of eliminating poverty, illiteracy. Mahatma Gandhi commented that "Womanhood is not restricted to the kitchen", he opined and felt that "Only when the woman is liberated from the slavery of the kitchen, that her true spirit may be discovered". It does not mean that women should not cook, but only that household responsibilities be shared among men, women and children. He wanted women to outgrow the traditional responsibilities and participate in the affairs of nation. He criticized Indian's passion for male progeny. He said that as long as we don't consider girls as natural as our boys our nation will be in a dark eclipse. Education is the tool that can help break the pattern of gender discrimination and bring lasting change for women in developing countries. Educated women are essential for ending gender bias. Education of girls has a positive impact on economic well-being of women and their families and society in the long run through below mentioned circle

1. As women receive greater education and training, they will earn more money.
2. As women earn more money they spend it in the further education and health of their children, as opposed to men, who often spend it on drink, tobacco or other women.
3. As women raise their economic status, they will gain greater social standing in the household, and will have greater voice.
4. As women gain consciousness, they will make stronger claims to their entitlements gaining further training, better access to credit and higher incomes.
5. As women’s economic power grows, it will be easier to overcome the tradition of "son preference" and thus put an end to the evil of dowry.
6. As son preference declines and acceptance of violence declines, families will be more likely to educate their daughters, and age of marriage will rise.
7. As women are better nourished and marry later, they will be healthier, more productive, and will give birth to healthier babies.