India has passed a lot of specific laws in favour of women’s protection and wellbeing, but still the gender differences in India have remained substantial. India ranked 140th among 156 countries in the global gender gap. Indian laws mandate 1/3rd reservation of women in local bodies but there is only 12% representation of women in Parliament. This ranks India on 149th spot in terms of Women in Parliament, far behind countries like Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Syria. In education, only 48% of women in India succeed in completing the basic 5-year primary education, outshined by neighbouring countries like Nepal (92%) and Bangladesh (54%). The low literacy has a standard reason: if girls would go to school, who shall work in the home, take care of children, and cook. This deep-rooted societal attitude has led to a massive gender imbalance in the workplace. Unfortunately, India ranks second-last among G20 countries in terms of women workforce.
Recently, India amended the maternity benefit act and put forward the third highest maternity leave policy in the world after Canada and Norway. But this policy doesn’t apply to countless women working in the unorganised sector. Health sector has seen to be of utmost importance during the Covid pandemic, but for women, good healthcare remains a distant dream. Female foeticide has skewed the sex ratio to 943 women to 1000 men, lower than countries like Uganda and Turkey. Violence against women takes the form of rape, sexual harassment at workplace, abuse, foeticide, and honour killings that occur every day. This makes India the 4th most dangerous country for women in the world.
Gender equality is enshrined in the fifth sustainable development goal (SDG) of the UN with a major focus on empowerment of all women and girls. The goal targets challenges in education, health, and economy to combat discrimination against women, violence, lack of access to reproductive health. Research on gender suggests a change towards multiple and holistic perspectives for improving the condition of women in education, health, economy and society in general.
—The writer is a Social Work student at Central University of Karnataka. [email protected]

Danishwar Rasool Dar