Context: It is necessary to get rid of inborn biases and perceptions about the effectiveness of women in roles of authority, specifically with respect to India. In this context we discuss the imbalances pertaing to Women in Society.
Women leadership across the Globe

• With women leaders heading their governments, Germany, Taiwan and New Zealand have garnered much-deserved appreciation for having managed the pandemic much better than their neighbours.
• A detailed study by researchers in the United States reports that States which have female governors had fewer COVID-19 related deaths.
• Perhaps partly because female governors acted more decisively by issuing earlier stay-at-home orders.
• The authors of the study conclude that women leaders are more effective than their male counterparts in times of crisis.
• While it is dangerous to make sweeping generalisations based on one study, the important takeaway is the necessity of getting rid of inherent biases and perceptions about female effectiveness in leadership roles.

India’s gram panchayats

• A study was conducted by Nobel Laureate Esther Duflo and co-author Raghabendra Chattopadhyay, who used the system of mandated reservations of pradhans in gram panchayats to test the effectiveness of female leadership.
• Note: The 1993 amendment to the Indian Constitution mandated that all States had to reserve one-third of all positions of pradhan for women.
• Since villages chosen for the mandated reservations were randomly selected, differences in investment decisions made by gram panchayats could be attributed to the differences in gender of the pradhans.
• The study demonstrated that women perform significantly better than men in implementing policies that promote the interests of women.
• They concluded that pradhans invested more in rural infrastructure that served better the needs of their own gender.

Gender Equality

• What needs evaluation is: What proportion of women stand for election to the various State and central legislatures? How many are elected? How many women occupy important positions in the executive branch of government?
• In addition to the importance of promoting more space for women in public policy, this is also an important goal from the perspective of gender equality.

Suffrage in India

• The right to vote is arguably the most important dimension of participation in public life.
• Independent India can rightly be proud of its achievement in so far as women’s suffrage is concerned.
• In Independent India, women were allowed to vote from 1950 onwards. Therefore, women could participate on an equal footing with men from the first general election of 1951-52.
• This is in striking contrast to the experience in the so-called “mature democracies” of western Europe and the United States.
• In the U.S., it took several decades of struggle before women were allowed to vote in 1920.
• Most countries in Europe also achieved universal suffrage during the inter-war period. Since most able-bodied men went away to the battlefields during the First World War, increasing numbers of women could show that they were adequate substitutes in activities that were earlier the sole preserve of men.
• This is believed to have mitigated the anti-female bias and earned women the right to vote in European countries.
• Also, India has had and have charismatic female leaders like Indira Gandhi, Jayalalitha, Mayawati, Sushma Swaraj and Mamata Banerjee among several others.

Concerns
Underrepresentation of female ministers:

• At present, there is an underrepresentation of female ministers in India.
• The female representation in the government at the Centre is probably not very far from the typical gender composition in Indian central and State governments.
• Female members make up only about 10% of the total ministerial strength.
• The underrepresentation of women in Indian legislatures is even more striking.
• Note: Rwanda comes out on top with a staggering 60% of seats in its lower house occupied by women.

The women’s Bill languishes

• Attempts have been made to extend quotas for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies through a Women’s Reservation Bill.
• When the bill was introduced (1996), male members from several parties opposed the Bill on various pretexts.
• Despite the fact that 24 years have passed since it was first presented in the Lok Sabha and the Bill has been introduced in successive Parliaments, there has been no success in this regard.
• Unfortunately, the fate of this Bill represents a blot on the functioning of the Indian Parliament.

Steps needed to reduce prejudice and Road Ahead

• The establishment of quotas for women is the best way forward.
• A sure way of increasing numbers of women in legislatures and subsequently in cabinets is by avoiding the logjam in the Parliament by reserving say a third of party nominations for women.
• Quotas have both a short-term and long-term impact.
• There is substantial evidence showing that increased female representation in policymaking goes a long way in improving perceptions about female effectiveness in leadership roles.
• It would decrease the bias among voters against women candidates. Voter perceptions about the efficacy of female leadership may change so drastically in the long run that quotas may no longer be necessary.
• Since women running for elections face numerous challenges, it is essential to create a level-playing field through appropriate legal measures.