The Reality of Gender Equality in India

Traditionally India has been a male dominated society. While male domination is giving way to gender equality in the rest of the world, how are we doing as a country in this direction? People of my generation will readily agree that we have made tremendous progress in last fifty years. We see Indian women actively making contribution in all walks of life, and standing up for their rights. We very often see many marriages among the people we know that display this healthy balance. No one can deny that we have improved a lot, but at the same time we need to do a lot more.

Let us do a reality check. Consider the following facts that stare us in the face even 60 years after independence:

• There is a serious move of making reservation for women in parliament as we have very few women in politics.
• Even in big cities, we see instances of girls giving up careers, their on-line presence, and friends after marriage. Boys do not have to do it.
• If we look at the data about the ratio of female and male children born in India in recent years, the trend becomes clear. On the average, for every 100 boys born in India, there are only 90 girls born! 
• Are some couples in India engaging in the banned practice of pre-natal sex selection to opt for a male child? Not sure about it, but the situation seems so grim that during election, Narendra Modi had to give a slogan, “Beti bachao beti padhao”.

It may be just the last mile in this long journey, but it the one that is turning out to be the most difficult. It may appear on the surface that urban people are already well educated not to have a gender bias, but it is not true really. The problem is as rampant in cities as in villages. What do we need to do to correct it?

As a first step, we need to fix our mindset, particularly starting with the urban educated people. An educated celebrity endorsing an outdated gender stereotype can do much more damage by granting validity to it. Let me take a couple of specific examples:

 

The Pop Singer

Last year, a popular singer made a controversial remark at the Mood Indigo festival of IIT Bombay. He asked the boys, "Are there good-looking girls in IIT-B?" While men raised their hands in solidarity to signal 'no', the singer went on to cheer the men up and said, "Don't worry guys, you will find the best looking women when you leave this campus. Aur woh tumhaare liye roti belengi (The women will make rotis for you)." Is he not spreading the stereotype that boys are supposed to make a career and girls are expected to cook?

 

The Youth Icon

Recently, a popular author who is known as a youth icon said in an article on the new government in India, "nayi bahu or nayi sarkar, doesn’t remain nayi forever. The honeymoon phase ends. After that, bahu or sarkar, has to manage not only actions but also expectations."

Again, it is a pity to see a sensible person like this author endorse and reinforce gender stereotypes prevalent in the society with such comments. If he had to take an example, why did he not choose ‘naya damaad’, or ‘saas’, or ‘pati’? Why only nayi bahu?  One may argue that it is a reality in India, not a stereotype as the bride is the one that usually has to move into another family and "adjust" to a new reality. With modern industrial economy, some boys may be living in a nuclear family away from home and parental units, but it is still statistically insignificant. 

While it is true that brides move to live with in-laws in many cases, it does not translate into all onus of fulfilling expectations on the bride. Should the bride who is leaving her parent's place not have any expectations from the in-laws and her husband? The damad may not live with in-laws, does that mean that in-laws cannot have any expectations from him?

The reality today is that the even if bride and her family may have expectations from her in laws and husband but relatively these are much less than what is expected form the bahu. Also the areas of responsibilities and duties of a bahu are much higher than a damaad resulting in higher expectations from her simply. Can we call it gender equality?

There lies the problem. The matter-of-fact mention of the need for the bahu to live up to the expectations of her in-laws, is not only a sexist mindset, but in the extreme case gives rise to harassment in sasural and dowry deaths. We need to change our own mindset before we can reform the reality.

In modern age when the entire world has woken up the notion of gender equality, everybody needs to get used to this concept, particularly young Indian girls and boys. However, it is sad to see gender discrimination still among people of generation Y. It is so hard to say when we will get there. The pace at which it is moving, it may take few generations for us to change that mindset. I believe women can help build the momentum by taking care of the following:

• Educate yourself as much as possible.
• Aim high and not limit your dreams.
• Make sure to build a career and have financial independence. 
• Do not see a contradiction between career and family. Learn to strike a good balance.
• Refuse to accept any discrimination against you.
• Take positive action to stop propagation of gender discrimination when you are in the role of a mother or mother-in-law.

We can see some shoots of positivity in this direction so hopefully sooner rather than later we are going to see a day when men and women are treated at par in our country. I eagerly look forward to the day. Maybe we get lucky and witness this vital change within our lifetime. Amen.

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About This Post

Many people contributed ideas for this post. Thanks a lot Anuj bhai, Ishu, Vasu, and Mukesh for the engaging discussion and your valuable insights that gave shape to this post.