Discover Gender Discrimination: Advocating Equality, and Education for Women

24 Nov 2023

Women’s work and equality are intrinsically linked. Removing gender discrimination in the workforce is a fundamental principle, advocating for equal opportunities, pay, and treatment for women. It addresses systemic barriers that often limit women’s access to employment, career advancement, and economic independence. 

Persistent Inequality: Government Action Against Systemic Gender Discrimination

  • Household and Care-giving Work: As we have seen, the low value attached to women’s household and care-giving work is not an individual or family matter.
  • Systemic Inequality: It is part of a larger system of inequality between men and women.
  • Government Action: Therefore, it has to be dealt with through actions, not just at the level of the individual or the family but also by the government.
  • Constitutional Equality: As we now know, equality is an important principle of our Constitution.
    • The Constitution says that being male or female should not become a reason for discrimination.  
    • But In reality, inequality between the sexes exists.
  • Tackling Gender Discrimination: Therefore, the government is committed to understanding the reasons for this and taking positive steps to remedy the situation.

Measures to Tackle Women Inequality: Government Measures to Eradicate Gender Discrimination

  • Understanding Gender Inequality: Principle of equality helps to determine whether women can work outside the house and what kind of jobs and careers they can have.
  • Child-Care Centers: The government has set up Anganwadis or child-care centers in several villages in the country.
  • Legal Mandates: The government has passed laws that make it mandatory for organizations that have more than 30 women employees to provide crèche facilities.
    • The provision of crèches helps many women to take up employment outside the home.
    •  It also makes it possible for more girls to attend schools.

Measures of Women Empowerment

Change in Opportunities for Women: Gender Discrimination in Education and Opportunities

Fewer opportunities and rigid expectations
  • It is important to understand that we live in a society in which all children face pressures, often rooted in gender discrimination from the world around them.
  • Sometimes, these come in the form of demands from adults.
  • At other times, they can just be because of unfair teasing by our own friends.
  • Boys are pressured to think about getting a job that will pay a good salary.
  • They are also teased and bullied if they do not behave like other boys.
  • Because so many people believe in these stereotypes, many girls do not get the same support that boys do to study and train to become doctors and engineers.
  • In most families, once girls finish school, they are encouraged by their families to see marriage as their main aim in life.
Learning for change
  • In the nineteenth century, many new ideas about education and learning emerged.
  • Schools became more common, and communities that had never learnt reading and writing started sending their children to school.
  • But there was a lot of opposition to educating girls even then.
  • Yet many women and men made efforts to open schools for girls.
  • Women have struggled to learn to read and write.
Schooling and education today
  • Today, both boys and girls attend school in large numbers, yet there is persistent gender discrimination. 
  • Yet there still remain differences between the education of boys and girls.
  • According to the 1961 census, about 40 percent of all boys and men could at least write their names, compared to just 15 percent of all girls and women.
  • In the most recent census of 2011, these figures have grown to 82 per cent for boys and men, and 65 per cent for girls and women.
  • This means that the proportion of both men and women who are now able to read and have at least some amount of schooling has increased.
  • But the percentage of the male group is still higher than the female group. The gap has not gone away.

Girls of Minority Communities and Schooling: Gender Discrimination in Minority Girls’ Education

  • Situation of girls schooling is more depressing when we look into girls of minority communities. 
  • The percentage of girls and boys who leave schools from Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST)  is higher from other different social groups. 

Drop-out rate in School Education: Gender Discrimination in Schooling Disparities

  • Girls’ School Dropout Rate: The rate of SC and ST girls leaving school is higher than that of the category ‘All Girls.’ reflecting gender discrimination.
  • Challenges for Dalit and Adivasi Girls:This means that girls who are from Dalit (SC) and Adivasi (ST) backgrounds are less likely to remain in school reflecting gender discrimination
  • Educational Disparities by Religion: The 2011 census also found that Muslim girls are less likely to complete primary school than SC and ST girls.
  • Muslim Girls’ Education: While a Muslim girl is likely to stay in school for around three years, girls from other communities spend around four years in school.
  • School Accessibility: In many parts of the country, especially in rural and poor areas, there may not even be proper schools or teachers who teach on a regular basis.
  • Transportation Barriers: If a school is not close to people’s homes, and there is no transport like buses or vans, parents may not be willing to send their girls to school.
  • Economic Constraints: Many families are too poor and unable to bear the cost of educating all their children.
    • Boys may get preference in this situation.
  • Gender Bias in Education: Many children also leave school because they are discriminated against by their teacher and classmates.

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UDAAN PRELIMS WALLAH
Comprehensive coverage with a concise format
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Designed as per recent trends of Prelims questions
हिंदी में भी उपलब्ध

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