Women Empowerment

Zorawar Singh
Women in India have made considerable progress in last seven decades of Independence.  However, they still have to struggle against many handicaps and social evils in the male-dominated society. The patriarchal society still prevails in the modern Indian society, which continues to resist the forward march of its women folk.
In order to achieve the status of a developed country, India needs to transform its colossal women force into an effective human resource and this is possible only through the empowerment of women.
Various Facets Of Women Empowerment. Women empowerment means emancipation of women from the vicious grips of social, economical, political, caste and gender-based discrimination. It means granting women the freedom to make life choices. Women empowerment does not mean ‘deifying women’ rather it means replacing patriarchy with parity. In this regard, there are various facets of women empowerment as mentioned below:-
* Social Empowerment. A critical aspect of social empowerment of women is promotion of gender equality. Gender equality implies a society in which     women and men enjoy the same opportunities, outcomes, rights and obligations  in all spheres of life.
* Educational Empowerment. It means empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process. It means making women aware of their rights and developing a confidence to claim them.
* Economical and Occupational Empowerment. It implies a better quality of material life through sustainable livelihoods owned and managed by women. It means reducing their financial dependence on their male counterparts by making them a significant part of human resource.
* Legal Empowerment. It suggests the provision of an effective legal structure which is supportive of women empowerment. It means addressing the gaps between what the law prescribes and what actually occurs.
* Political Empowerment.    It means existence of a political system favoring the participation and control by women of the political decision-making process and in governance.
Current Scenario. Based on the ideas championed by our founding fathers for women empowerment, many social, economic and political provisions were incorporated in the Indian Constitution. Women in India now participate in areas such as education, sports, politics, media, art and culture, service sector and science and technology. But due to the deep- rooted patriarchal mentality in the Indian society, women are still victimized, humiliated, tortured and exploited. Even after almost seven decades of Independence, women are still subjected to discrimination in social, economic and educational field. Various landmark steps taken for women empowerment are as follows:-
* Right to equality under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution guarantees to all Indian women equality before law.
* Equal pay for equal work under Article 39(d), guards the economic rights of women by guaranteeing equal pay for equal work.
* Maternity Relief under Article 42 allows provisions to be made by the state for securing just and humane condition of work and maternity relief for women.
* Acts like the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, prohibits the request, payment or acceptance of a dowry. Asking or giving dowry can be punished by imprisonment as well as fine.
* Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, provides for a more effective protection of the rights of women who are victims of domestic violence. A breach of this Act is punishable with both fine and imprisonment.
* Sexual Harassment of Women at Work Place Act 2013, helps to create a conducive environment at workplace for women where they are not subjected to any sort of sexual harassment.
* As per the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, all the local elected bodies reserve one-third of their seats for women. Such a provision was made to increase the effective participation of women in politics.
* Women’s Reservation Bill – It is a pending Bill in India which proposes to reserve 33% of all seats of the Lok Sabha and in all State Legislative Assemblies for women. If passed, this Bill will give a significant boost to the position of women in politics.
* The Government of India is running various welfare schemes and policies, both at State and Central levels for the empowerment of woman. Some of the major programmes and measures include Swadhar (1995), Swayam Siddha (2001), Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP-2003), Sabla Scheme (2010), National Mission for Empowerment of Women (2010) etc. All such policies and programmes focus on social, economical and educational empowerment of women across various age groups.
The induction of women into the army has not been an easy process.  Until 1992, women in the Indian Armed Forces were limited to Army Medical Corps, the Army Dental Corps and Military Nursing Services.  Once the doors opened, the armed forces began recruiting women as short service commissioned officers which allowed them to serve for five years and 14 years, which started out with an experimental batch of 25 women.
It was the first time on 66th Republic Day celebrations that the three wings of the Indian Armed forces – the Army, Navy and Air force – had an all women contingent each marching down Rajpath. Reports said that the idea of all women contingents came from Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself as he wanted the services to focus on ‘Nari Shakti’. Though the parade highlighted the presence of women in the Armed forces, it failed to question the actual involvement of women in the Armed forces.
Challenges. The most widespread and dehumanizing discriminations against women are on the basis of biased perspective. The discrimination against the girl child begins from the birth itself. Boys are preferred over girls; hence female infanticide is a common practice in India. The ordeal that an Indian girl faces at birth is only the beginning of a lifelong struggle to be seen and heard.
The traditional Indian society is a patriarchal society ruled by the diktats of self proclaimed caste lords who are the guardians of archaic and unjust traditions. They put the burden of traditions, culture and honour on the shoulders of women and mar their growth. The incidences of “honour killing” reveal the distorted social fibre in the male-dominated society.
Women constitute only 29% of the workforce but forms majority of the destitute in the country. There has been a failure in transforming the available women base into human resource. This in turn has hampered not only the economic development of women but also of the country’s, as a whole.
Through all these years, the attention is only on developing and devising new schemes, policies and programmes and have paid less attention to the proper monitoring system and implementation short sightedness, for e.g. despite the presence of The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technologies Act and various health programmes like Janani Suraksha Yojana and National Rural Health Mission (NHRM), our country has a skewed sex ratio and a high maternal mortality rate (MMR).
Although there are number of laws to protect women against all sorts of violence yet there has been significant increase in the episodes of rapes, extortions, acid, attacks etc. This is due to delay in legal procedures and the presence of several loopholes in the functioning of judicial system.
The still- pending Women’s Reservation Bill underscores the lack of political will to empower women politically. The male dominance prevails in the politics of India and women are forced to remain mute spectators.
Empowering women socially, economically, educationally politically and legally is going to be a Herculean task. It is not going to be easy to change the culture of disregard for women which is so deep-rooted in Indian society. But it does not mean that it is implausible.
Only revolutions bring changes in a day, but reforms take their time. This one in particular will take its time as well. The idea of women empowerment might sound hard by the yard, but by the inch, it is just a cinch. All we need is a concentrated effort focused in the right direction that would rest only with the liberation of women from all forms of evil.
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