Women in poor and middle class India
I am not writing this as a feminist or having anything biased over gender. I am writing this with reasoning on real life examples taken essentially from south India and I haven't done any particular survey over the status of women or any particular statistical analysis. I am writing this completely depending upon the psychological facts, problems faced by parents of girl child belonging to poor, lower middle class and middle class in South India and daily news covering women across the world, might be in news papers, stories, magazines, documentaries or novels.
Everybody shows some kind of optimism regarding the improvement of status of women across the world and also in emerging economies and when you take India in that list, which has been declared as worst country for women among the non-muslim nations, we find some heavily optimistic people coming from where? which class? which society? what background? We don't know, but we hear them always on big screen talking so loud exampling different women in India who has done so much and doing something. How many? A few handful from a place. It doesn't mean we could count many men. Basically, is it the really criteria to tell that women status has improved in the country by taking example of a handful of well know women, economic status and employment among them? Well, can we say, if a women getting employed imply she is empowered? This is a question we should ask to ourselves.
Let us consider few basic statistical data, female literacy rate in India was 65.40% in 2011, consider now is around 70%, more than 70% of women still living in rural areas, average age at marriage for women is 22.2 but more than 61% of women getting married below 16 years, and lets slice 5-10% from it for the present year. So, what does it show about the status of the women. I am not trying to fill pessimism in you, I am showing the urgent need for the quick transformation of society to move forward. Maybe 70 is good when compared with hundred but when it come to 1000 it will be 300 uneducated and for 10000, 3000 uneducated women,100000-30000, 10000000-3000000, 1000000000-300000000. This is how the number increases when we look at the population. That's is not a small number to still feel optimistic about. When statistic shows this side, let's consider social status, treatment and importance that a women can get.
Another small statistical account is the average age for educated women getting married in India is 22 which is roughly immediate after their graduation. Now, think how many educated women can come out of family clutches to dream things and do or contribute whatever they want to to this society. Those most of the women from middle class are educated, their status in their family still remains the same unless they excel in academics particularly in our country where unemployment is more prevalent. Only 26% of the total female population are employed when their literacy stood at 66% and in that work participation rate of female workers in rural areas was higher which stood at 30.0 as compared to the work participation rate of 15.4 per cent in urban areas. From this we can understand the work force supplied by the educated women. This is something like not enjoying the fruit of hard work or we can say, it remained untapped human potential. The manual labor supplied by women in India are higher than that of male population when 60% of India still depends on Agriculture and agro-industries. This clearly shows, though educated, they could enjoy certain free and assert their rights, there is still so much bias running in the country. There is still so much fear among the middle class families in India for having a girl child. If not for those strict laws, there still be genocide in India. This isn't that the ignorance of people in India but the fear in fact. So, why the fear?
Consider the above statistics. when 60% of the women graduates are unemployed, in a middle class countries like India, how many people favor for the education of women? They considering it investment for loss, which is hugely prevalent in rural, towns and semi-urban areas, where women are given just the free primary education. Huge spending on girl child as a tradition, societal pressure. Due to the traditions in India which is hugely prevalent still in urban areas, where parents spend proportionally huge amount of money on female puberty rituals, birthdays, marriage and dowry than for her education. This is not class bound. Sometimes parents may give up spending for education for the above mentioned nothing to do with life things. This huge spending for girl child where returns are less or almost nil making their parents planning for the money for all those societal girl ritual that to provide better education. The prevalent of these customs among the educated Indians will astonish people across the world. We can see families being dragged into debts for these traditional rituals with nil ROI. With these kind of obnoxious things exists in India, how can we expect parents of girl child to be optimistic when there is huge pessimism running about having children in India but they can't avoid it. In addition to this there is huge amount of social insecurity, unwanted provocations, immoral cultural transitions in the name of modern society which is degrading the status of women.
Another small statistical account is the average age for educated women getting married in India is 22 which is roughly immediate after their graduation. Now, think how many educated women can come out of family clutches to dream things and do or contribute whatever they want to to this society. Those most of the women from middle class are educated, their status in their family still remains the same unless they excel in academics particularly in our country where unemployment is more prevalent. Only 26% of the total female population are employed when their literacy stood at 66% and in that work participation rate of female workers in rural areas was higher which stood at 30.0 as compared to the work participation rate of 15.4 per cent in urban areas. From this we can understand the work force supplied by the educated women. This is something like not enjoying the fruit of hard work or we can say, it remained untapped human potential. The manual labor supplied by women in India are higher than that of male population when 60% of India still depends on Agriculture and agro-industries. This clearly shows, though educated, they could enjoy certain free and assert their rights, there is still so much bias running in the country. There is still so much fear among the middle class families in India for having a girl child. If not for those strict laws, there still be genocide in India. This isn't that the ignorance of people in India but the fear in fact. So, why the fear?
Consider the above statistics. when 60% of the women graduates are unemployed, in a middle class countries like India, how many people favor for the education of women? They considering it investment for loss, which is hugely prevalent in rural, towns and semi-urban areas, where women are given just the free primary education. Huge spending on girl child as a tradition, societal pressure. Due to the traditions in India which is hugely prevalent still in urban areas, where parents spend proportionally huge amount of money on female puberty rituals, birthdays, marriage and dowry than for her education. This is not class bound. Sometimes parents may give up spending for education for the above mentioned nothing to do with life things. This huge spending for girl child where returns are less or almost nil making their parents planning for the money for all those societal girl ritual that to provide better education. The prevalent of these customs among the educated Indians will astonish people across the world. We can see families being dragged into debts for these traditional rituals with nil ROI. With these kind of obnoxious things exists in India, how can we expect parents of girl child to be optimistic when there is huge pessimism running about having children in India but they can't avoid it. In addition to this there is huge amount of social insecurity, unwanted provocations, immoral cultural transitions in the name of modern society which is degrading the status of women.
The moment we hear a woman name, mostly their sexual image is what that first strikes the brain. Still in India and in most developing countries, women area assessed based on their appearance and that is how they are depicted in media with "that is what most people wants". Yes, it is true. The recent example of most searched Indians on internet topped by ex-porn turned actress Mrs Sunny leone who beat Mr Modi and Mr APJ A Kalam. Let's have a look at top 10 women and men. Sunny Leone, Katrina Kaif, Deepika padukone, Kajal Aggarwal, Alia Bhatt. Among men are Salman Khan, Mr APJ Abdhul Kalam, Sharukh Khan, Honey singh and Mr Narendra Modi. This example shows the class of influence having in people about women when all top people searched are glamour actress. At least a few people from men are people who work for country. You can ask, does this shows the mentality of men towards women and does it influence what women want to be? Don't ask me. Just open your eyes around you, where you can see most of them imitating or having view of somebody popular either be a man or a woman. It is like in 2000s when you ask a guy, I want to become engineer, when you ask a girl, I want to become a doctor. Though now, they are getting matured at early age, but the maturity based on influence and propaganda. What we propagate much much about something will make people aspire for that, either it be ISIS ideals or Gandhian propaganda cause logic might work on individual but not on masses.
A true state of sexual unbiased society emerges only when the the propagation of women changes to a greater good and towards their uplift, strengths, education and security, there will be still psychological harassment for women where ever they are, though in the police or political force. The usual depiction of women should be changed in every sector of propagation. Still there is a condition in India where a woman feel inferior about another woman, and I have seen, though how educated and intelligent she is, that guy's mother didn't accept unless she gets a dowry and of same caste. Not just one instance, if you are man reading this, go talk to your mother about marrying a educated girl without dowry cause it might push girl's parents into debts. Let's see how many mothers comes out so broad minded.
There is no need to be rules and laws. You are one among 82.5% educated men and 66% educated women. If you change the way you look at women for good. This will naturally give them equal status. I don't consider women being housewives or working in agriculture as repression of women, but not giving them proper respect for their work and wisdom and not providing the freedom to grow equal to men is what I call sexual repression. Be human.
A true state of sexual unbiased society emerges only when the the propagation of women changes to a greater good and towards their uplift, strengths, education and security, there will be still psychological harassment for women where ever they are, though in the police or political force. The usual depiction of women should be changed in every sector of propagation. Still there is a condition in India where a woman feel inferior about another woman, and I have seen, though how educated and intelligent she is, that guy's mother didn't accept unless she gets a dowry and of same caste. Not just one instance, if you are man reading this, go talk to your mother about marrying a educated girl without dowry cause it might push girl's parents into debts. Let's see how many mothers comes out so broad minded.
There is no need to be rules and laws. You are one among 82.5% educated men and 66% educated women. If you change the way you look at women for good. This will naturally give them equal status. I don't consider women being housewives or working in agriculture as repression of women, but not giving them proper respect for their work and wisdom and not providing the freedom to grow equal to men is what I call sexual repression. Be human.
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