International Women's Day (March 8) is an event to celebrate the pluralistic and multi-dimensional achievements of women. The day is also meant to reflect on the challenges faced by women and marks a call for action for accelerating gender equity and upholding women’s rights. The day was first celebrated on February 28, 1909, in New York.
The theme for this year's International Women’s Day is ‘DigitALL: Technology and innovation for gender equality’.
India is predominantly a patriarchal society. On gender indicators, it ranks poorly year after year. However, the country has been making continuous efforts to bridge gender gaps in social, economic, health, and political aspects. The technological revolution is helping to bridge gender gaps in every sphere of life.
Excerpts from the interview with Dr. Srinivas Goli
How far have we progressed in terms of overall gender development and inequality compared the other developing countries, especially our neighbours?
According to the Human Development Report of 2021, India ranks 132 out of 172 countries for which data is available. India’s rank in Gender Development Index (GDI) is worse—162 out of 172 countries. In fact, it has further worsened in 2021 (0.849) compared to 2019 (0.852). The country ranks below all major sub-continent neighbours (viz. Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) except Pakistan. The index measures the progress in life expectancy at birth, mean and expected years of schooling and gross national income for males and females.
The country has shown a slight improvement in its Gender Inequality Index (GII) in 2021 (0.490) compared to 2020 (0.493). It had worsened between 2019 (0.486) and 2020 (0.493). However, still India ranks below all the major sub-continent neighbours (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) except for Nepal. The index measures inequality in the achievement between women and men across three dimensions—reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market. Thus, overall progress of our country in gender development is unsatisfactory as it is performing worse than many poorer countries of Asia and Africa.
According to you, which are the most important indicators of gender inequality?
The trajectory of gender development in India is paradoxical. Though the gender gap in girls’ education, basic health care and child survival is converging in recent years, women are still lagging behind in several critical economic and decision-making indicators. For instance, women’s labour force participation is either stagnant or dropping further due to unfavourable and underpaid labour markets, particularly among less and middle-educated people. The motherhood penalty is still persistent in one or the other form. In most cases, women’s work is undercounted and they still face key challenges in exercising economic decisions (e.g. use of their own earnings) as well as independence over personal choices which include the selection of a life partner or a particular profession. Nearly half of the women (51 per cent) have financial freedom, while 42 per cent and 32 per cent own a house or land either alone or jointly. Freedom of mobility is improving, but not yet at the desired levels. Parents still don’t consider daughters as a viable option for old age financial and social security, thus sex-selective abortions still prevail and the sex ratio at birth is skewed towards male. Violence against women is still prevalent due to persisting patriarchal supremacy. Even today, 32 per cent of women are facing intimate partner violence in India.
This year the theme of women’s day is DigitALL. Do you think technology and innovation can improve gender equality?
Access to technology is definitely one of the agencies for improving women’s empowerment and bringing gender equity. However, only 54 per cent of women own mobile phones, and internet accessibility is comparatively low. Thus, bridging digital gender gaps needs more efforts.
What is your take on the question of women’s empowerment and gender equity in India?
The country is still not addressing the roots of gender gaps i.e., patriarchy. Thus, a paradoxical gender progress is observed; girls are progressing in selected indicators (e.g. schooling and health care), probably for a well-suited match in the marriage market rather than empowering them socio-economically to exercise their choices. Today, the problem is not only confined to male-female inequalities but also intra-female inequalities across the inter-section of caste, class and region. Women's participation in policymaking is still low. Thus, the need of the hour is better treatment of daughters and trusting that they will take care of the socio-economic and emotional needs of parents at their later ages. Such transformations in social and gender norms would not only prevent sex-selective abortions but also improve their status and empower them socio-economically and politically.