Gender Equality in India

Gender equality is now universally accepted as being a prerequisite for sustainable human development. In India, although some progress in women's development has been made, women continue to lag behind men. The adverse sex ratio, poor educational and nutritional status, inequality in wages and the prevalence of violence against women are all pointers to the fact of glaring gender inequalities in key areas of social, economic and political participation and decision-making. As a consequence, the potentials, perspectives and contributions of one half of the population remain largely invisible and unacknowledged.

Gender equality cannot come about only through changes in the conditions of women's lives - it requires transformation of the patriarchal structures and systems that lie at the root of women's subordination and gender inequality. These structures cannot be transformed by external interventions alone - women must themselves become active agents of change. Gender equality, therefore, demands women's empowerment.

Strategies for women's empowerment must recognise the fact that gender oppression and marginalisation are the outcome of a web of complex forces. At every stage in their lives, beginning from before birth, women are affected not only by their present circumstances, but also by the cumulative burdens of their pasts. Thus, the average girl-child in rural India is born to an underage, underfed and overworked mother, and will be underweight and weak at birth. If she survives the first year of life, she will be more vulnerable to infections and will grow more slowly than her brother. Her mother, under pressure to bear a son and weighed down by the double burden of work inside and outside the home, will have little time to nurture her. The girl child is likely to get less than her fair share of food and lives in a permanent condition of nutritional stress. She will probably not get a chance to go to school for more than three or four years. Her education will come from helping her mother at work - in the home and sometimes outside. Struggling with the responsibility of survival tasks, household work and childcare, she has little time to play or enjoy her childhood. She is likely to be married before she is 16, and will be a mother in another year. The infant will probably be underweight and weak - thus continuing the cycle.

As the girl child grows older and reaches adolescence, this sequence of deprivation and discrimination expresses itself in poor health, lack of literacy, a consequent inability to access new sources of information and knowledge, skills only in some limited traditional areas, and low self-esteem. These factors continue to define the boundaries of her existence for the rest of her life. These are also the factors that will determine her relationship with her own daughters and in turn will shape their lives.

The vulnerability of adolescent girl is increased by her ambiguous status. Adolescence is defined as beginning at puberty and continuing till adulthood - girls between the ages of 12 and 18 are adolescents. While the girl of 12 is biologically and emotionally a child, socially and culturally she is treated as an adult because she has attained puberty. This dichotomy is reflected not only by the attitudes and actions of her family and community, but also in public policy. The majority of adolescent girls are left out of interventions meant for children, because children are defined as the primary school-age group. Since she is not going to school, she is clubbed with adult women as a suitable candidate for vocational training. On the other hand, even after training, she cannot claim the wages of an adult because her employment is usually not legal. Since household work and agricultural work the two major sectors which absorb the labour of adolescent girls - are not considered `hazardous', she is left out of the purview of child labour legislation. Her labour, like that of adult women, is invisible and unremunerated. She is vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation, but as a `minor', she is subject to a `guardian', often the same adult who is abusing her.

Interventions directed at empowering the adolescent girl to take charge of her life therefore have an enormous potential for changing the situation of women. To be successful, these interventions must address the dualities in the situation of this group. The adolescent girl has the child's need for structured schooling as well as the adult need for unstructured learning opportunities. She has the child's need for care and nurturing as well as the adult's need for independent decision-making, the child's need for play as well as the adult's need for experimentation.