Gender is one of the crucial dimensions behind inequalities in the form and extent of work and political participation, levels of education, state of health, representation in decision making bodies, access to property etc. Hence, due to certain socio-cultural factors the economic and political roles of women have reminded mostly unrecognised. In the society they are marginalised and economically discriminated against.

Ironically, in the Indian situation where women goddesses are worshipped, women are denied an independent identity and status. This is strongly ingrained in the social fabric, the culture, the economy and the polity. As the code of Manu states: ‘a woman should never be independent. Her father has authority over her in childhood, her husband in youth, and her son in old age.’ (Manusmriti, Dharmashastra,IX, 3). Women‘s identity, freedom, access to resources, opportunities, etc., are determined by the caste and class status of the family.

Roles within Family

The first ideas on sex role, or as we would prefer to put it, gender role differences, which a child acquires, is that of women of other families marrying and leaving their homes to live with different groups of people.

Men appear to exercise far greater influence in decision-making and are far more visible and audible than their wives.

Most of the tasks within the home are done by the mother, grandmother, sisters and so on. All these tasks, which consume time and energy, are not counted as ‘work’ or ‘employment’ and there is no payment involved.

Economic roles of women

Indian tradition mainly perpetuates the perceptions of women’s primary role as the homemaker and not as the brad winner. Such a view ignores the realities of millions of women in the poorer sections in rural and urban areas, who work for the survival of the family. Millions of rural women work hard on family farms and within the home as unpaid workers collect fuel, fodder and water, work as artisans, craftworkers (weaving, cane and bamboo works etc.) with their men but are recognised as helpers and not as workers. When they work as wage labourers they are invariably paid less wages than men. The Government passed the Equal Remuneration Act (1976), however, it remains ineffective

The neglect of women’s economic roles results in exploitation of women workers, unequal wages between men and women, higher unemployment, due to loss of jobs in traditional sectors like textiles, mining, manufacturing and household industries.

The continued absence of concern for women’s economic roles till the Sixth Five Year Plan shows that women’s economic independence was given a low priority. Apart from this the nature of economic independence was given a low priority. Apart from this the nature of economic development in the post-Independence India benefited only a small section of urban educated middle and upper class women whose visibility as legislators, administrators, doctors, lawyers, teachers etc. led to an erroneous belief that women have made great strides and have achieved equality.

The report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India (1974) was a watershed in the debate on women’s issues in India. The Committee provided evidence of the decline in women’s employment due to technological changes, biases on the part of employers to ‘replace women by men and machines’. High illiteracy among women particularly among Scheduled Castes and Tribes and poor rural and urban women, coupled with inadequate training facilities for women.

Women’s Political Representation/roles

Several women leaders who had actively participated in the freedom movement, occupied important positions in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha (the two houses of Parliament), state legislatures, became governors, chief ministers, cabinet ministers held and other position within major political parties. Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister. Despite the prominent and high visibility of a few women at all levels of political leadership women remain underrepresented. Their number has never gone beyond 7 per cent in the Lok Sabha or State Assemblies.

One of the weaknesses in the political strategies of women’s organisations in the 50s and 60s was their inability to mobilise ordinary women and issues, which concerned them. The lack of efforts to reach to the masses and expand the base of women’s movement limited its effectiveness and agenda for action. The position of peasant and working class women deteriorated and only a small minority of women benefited.

Social Problems and Women - Violence

Problems faced by women are regarded as one form of Violence or the other against women. It  refers to ‘force, whether overt or convert, used to wrest from a woman something that she does not want to give of her own free will and which causes her either physical injury or emotional trauma or both’. 

Violence against women may be categorised as :

• criminal violence (rape, abduction, murder, molestation),
• domestic violence (dowry death, wife battering, sexual abuse by kim, maltreatment of widows and elderly women, torture of daughter-in-law), and
• social violence (forcing wife/daughter-in-law to go for female foeticide, eve-teasing, forcing a young widow to commit sati, refusing to give share to a woman in property).

Rape, Sexual Harassment and Abuse

Rape is a violent sexual intercourse performed against the will and consent of the woman. It demonstrates a power relationship between men and women. Rape diminishes the identity of the woman as an individual and objectifies her. In India, atrocities and crimes on women are increasing so is the incidence of rape. Every two hours, a rape occurs somewhere in India. Rape, sexual harassment, eve-teasing, molestation and abuse of women/young girls by men limit women’s freedom and perpetuate the notion that women need male protection at various stages in life. Sexual harassment and abuse at the workplace is least challenged or reported for fear of losing employment and stigmatization.

It is futile to argue that provocative dresses worn by women are responsible for sexual harassment or molestation. In many cases saree and salwar kameez clad women have been sexually harassed. It is the scant regard for women, which is responsible for sexual harassment of women besides their being regarded as commodities with no feeling, to be played with.

Paradoxically in our society, the victims of rape get stigmatised in the society. The woman who is the victim of rape is blamed because, the notion is that, “she must have invited it”, “she perhaps was dressed provocatively” etc.Excepting in a few cases most acts of rape are not outbursts of perversions. There are several forms of rape:

a) Rape within the family (e.g. incest rape, child sex abuse and rape by the husband, which is not legally accepted as rape);

b) Rape as caste/class domination (e.g. rape by upper caste men of lower caste women; rape of landless/agriculturallabourers/bonded labourers by landlords etc.);

c) Rape of children, minors and unprotected young women;

d) Gang rapes during wars, communal riots and political upheavals;

e) Custodial rapes (e.g. in police custody, remand homes, in hospitals, at the work place etc.);

f)  Stray, unpremeditated rapes.

The major rape incidents in Mathura and Maharashtra, and or Ramazabee in Hyderabad, in the police custody, and the court verdicts in these cases which acquitted the policemen on the clause of ‘consent’, led to a nation wide campaign for reform of Rape Law. A change was brought by the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1983. A man is said to commit rape if he has sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent, or with her consent, but having obtained it in a state of insanity or intoxication or by putting her or any person in whom she is interested in fear of death or of hurt or when she is below sixteen years of age. The Act also introduced categories of custodial rape. In any case of custodial rape, if the victim gives evidence that she did not consent to sexual intercourse, the court would assume that she did not consent. The onus of proving that rape was not committed will be on the man. However, the aspect of going into the details of past sexual history of the woman, in order to accept or reject the charge of rape has been left untouched. That is, the law sets standards of morality for protection of women.

Domestic Violence and Dowry Deaths

Violence on women in the family in the form of wife beating, ill treatment, emotional torture and the like, were considered family ‘problems’ and never acknowledged as crimes against women. It has been observed that domestic violence is prevalent in all classes of the society. The extreme form of this violence on young brides came to be known as ‘dowry deaths’ or ‘bride burning’ cases.

In most of the bride burning or dowry death or dowry murder cases the insatiable demands of the in-laws of the daughter, which cannot be met by her parents, is the main reason. In the case of suicides committed by the brides, it is proximately by the harassment and torture of the bride at the hands of her in-laws/husband and remotely by the expenses involved in the upkeep of the daughter with or without her children by her parents and the patriarchal izzat (honour which it is felt by the bride’s parents that the staying of their daughters in their natal family after marriage would tarnish their reputation and status in society) for which the bride’s parents are not willing to accept their daughter back.

Keeping this is mind the social activists and feminists have been demanding the right of a daughter in parental property both ancestral and self-acquired. This, it is, felt would mitigate the dowry death or dowry murder menace. As economic security for a bride is of the utmost importance like the emotional and moral support of her parents and relatives.

The existence, prevalence and ramifications of the practice of dowry are alarming. The incidence of dowry deaths, which is in the increase in several cities, metropolitans and small towns, was noticed by women’s groups and there was a demand for an amendment in the Dowry Act during the early 1980s. Female foetuses are systematically aborted in North India and in Western India with the aid of Amniocentesis (a sex detection test) in order to avoid the future payment of dowry at the time of marriage.

It has been observed that the practice of dowry came into existence with hypergamy, i.e., a marriage between a lower caste woman and an upper caste man. The concept of ‘stridhan’, the share in property which women received at time of marriage was slowly replaced by offering dowry by the bride’s family to the greeom’s family. Instead of a share in landed (immovable) property, dowry is generally in the form of cash or kind on which young brides rarely have control. The growth of consumerism, i.e., the want to acquire consumer items like T.V., video, scooter, refrigerator etc., among the middle class has led further to the demand of dowry. This practice in now moving into the lower classes and non-Hindu communities where earlier it was non-existent. The prevalent notion about dowry is that it is compensation to the groom’s family for taking over the responsibility of the woman’s sustenance. This notion thrives on the assumption that a woman is a ‘non-working’ person and marriage entails the transfer of this ‘burden’ of maintaining a ‘non-working’ person and marriage entails the transfer of this ‘burden’ of maintaining a ‘non-working’ person from the bride’s family to groom’s family. This notion is incorrect because (a) it undermines the multiple roles women play as housewives and mothers, and (b) does not explain why even employed women are expected to give dowry.

Pornography and Misrepresentation of Women in the Media

In Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986, prohibits indecent representation of women through advertisements or in publications, writings, painting, and figures or in any other manner, and for matters connected or incidental thereto.

However, pornographic literature, magazines, pictures, hoarding and films are published/printed which are seen as upholding the ‘right to freedom of expression’, in actuality violate woman’s dignity. In turn these create and perpetuate patriarchal images of ‘strong’, ‘aggressive’, ‘violent’, and chauvinistic men on the one hand, and ‘meek’, ‘submissive’, ‘vulnerable’ women as sex objects on the other hand. These images are utilised in advertisements, like cosmetics, fabrics, domestic gadgets and various other commodities, for commercial gains. A woman is projected as sexy and enticing and the man as macho, violent and independent. The films too utilize a similar formula. There are pressure groups that protest from time to time against pornography and he misrepresentation of women in the media.

Some women’s organisations provide counseling, legal aid and run support centres and short stay homes or women in distress. However, it is essential to reverse viewing women as ‘expendable’, ‘dispensable’ commodities and greater support for women should come forth from the community, neighborhood and her parents.

There is need to question the extraordinary value placed by parents and society on marriage and the pressure on women to-be-married-at-any-cost. The perpetuation of the practice of dowry undervalues women and make daughter unwelcome. The choice to remain ‘single’ (unmarried) should be respected and valued. Single women living alone or with the parental family should be nurtured as a ‘norm’ rather than a ‘deviance’.

Prostitution

Prostitution devalues women’s dignity and stigmatises her as a ‘fallen’ woman in the society. The commodisation of woman’s sexuality begins with the subordination of women. Women’s identity as an individual is undermined by the objectification of her sexuality and the sale of sexual experience. In the urban context, where single male migration from rural areas is high the business of prostitution is rampant. In 1986, the earlier SITA Act was amended to prevent trafficking in prostitution. However, the new Immoral Traffic in Persons Prevention Act (ITPPA) has similar aims, objectives, logic and premises.

The ITPPA, however, continues to be biased against the prostitute. The clauses penalizing the prostitute are retained. Simultaneously, the client is not made an offender.