women

STATUS OF WOMEN

“Yatra Nari Astu Pujyante, Ramante Tatra Devataa” The Gods reside in places where woman is worshiped --- Manu Smriti

“It is impossible to think about the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is impossible for a bird to fly on only one wing.” – Swami Vivekananda

Women are not born, but made. What better than India to exemplify this statement by Simone de Beauvoir. With the whole world celebrating International Women’s Day with great pomp and show, it would be only apt to analyze the position and space Indian women occupy today, and comparing it to the times 60 years ago when the country had just gained independence. With the women participating in nationalist movements to being pushed into the domestic household space, to their resurgence as the super-women today, women in our country have seen it all.

When our country got its independence, the participation of women nationalists was widely acknowledged. When the Indian Constitution was formulated, it granted equal rights to women, considering them legal citizens of the country and as an equal to men in terms of freedom and opportunity. The sex ratio of women at this time was slightly better than what it is today, standing at 945 females per 1000 males. Yet the conditions of women screamed a different reality.

A very few were allowed a public space, which she was expected to manage on her own along with her domestic role as a homemaker. In spite of the Sharda Act which was passed in the 1950s to raise the marital age limit for girls, child marriage particularly in North India was quite prevalent though the average age at marriage for females was increased to 18. Sprawling inequalities persisted in their access to education, health care, physical and financial resources and opportunities in political, social and cultural spheres. It was almost unthinkable for women to have a choice or a say in matters of marriage, career or life. Rather she had no voice at all. The practice of dowry was as common as ever.

Women of India slowly started recognizing her true potential. She has started questioning the rules laid down for her by the society. As a result, she has started breaking barriers and earned a respectable position in the world. Today Indian women have excelled in each and every field from social work to visiting space station. There is no arena, which remains unconquered by Indian women. Whether it is politics, sports, entertainment, literature, technology everywhere, its women power all along. The Modern Indian woman, does not let social constraints to keep her behind, but prioritizes her education or her career before anything else. From a time when there no woman writer in India who was taken seriously, today names like Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Shobhaa De, Jhumpa Lahiri can put any other writer to shame. In the field of cinema, women like Rekha, Smita Patil, Shabana Aazmi and Vidya Balan and Konkona Sen are such names who don’t play feminized roles, but have asserted themselves over this male-dominated realm. In the field of Politics, from Indira Gandhi to Shiela Dixit, Uma Bharti, Jayalalitha, Vasundhra Raje and Mamata Banerjee today, women are making their presence felt.