Accelerating Gender Equality

INTRODUCTION

International Women’s Day  highlights the urgent need to accelerate action for gender equality, recognising both progress and persistent challenges. India has advanced through inclusive policies and women’s empowerment initiatives, yet systemic barriers and societal norms continue to hinder full equality.

Origins of International Women’s Day

• Proposal for International Women’s Day (1910): 

• Clara Zetkin, a German socialist and women's rights activist, proposed the idea of International Women’s Day at the Second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910.

• The proposal was unanimously accepted, and the day continues to be celebrated worldwide more than a century later.

• Contributions of Clara Zetkin

• She believed suffrage was essential for women’s social and economic emancipation.

• Criticised bourgeois women for not supporting universal women’s suffrage.

• She edited the socialist women’s magazine Die Gleichheit (Equality) from 1892 to 1917, providing a platform for socialist feminist discourse.

• After German women won the right to vote in 1918, Zetkin continued her political career and was elected to the Reichstag (German Parliament) in 1932, becoming its oldest member.

• Delivered a 40-minute speech condemning Hitler and the Nazi party.

Women and Health

Areas of Progress

• Maternal Health Improvement:

• Institutional deliveries have increased to 95% under schemes like Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan and Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. 

• Maternal mortality has declined from 130 to 97 deaths per 1,00,000 births (2014-2020, Sample Registration System data).

• Reproductive Health Choices: 56.5% of married women use modern contraceptives, improving control over reproductive health.

• Healthcare Access: Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, the world's largest government-funded healthcare scheme, has provided millions of women with free critical medical treatment.

Areas to Improve 

• Underrepresentation in Medical Research: Women have been historically excluded from clinical trials, leading to higher risks of adverse drug reactions—women are twice as likely to experience them.

• Caregiving: 

• Women  play a disproportionate role in unpaid caregiving, shouldering nearly three quarters of global caregiving responsibilities. 

• This invisible labour significantly impacts their ability to engage in formal economic activities. 

• Healthcare leadership: While women constitute nearly 70% of the global health-care workforce, they hold less than 30% of leadership roles. 

• Challenges: Insufficient research funding for their specific conditions and underrepresentation in clinical trials, resulting in biased treatment, societal biases and discrimination often limit the access to and quality of care.

• Way Forward:

• Expanding routine screenings, early detection, and education campaigns for diseases such as cervical and breast cancer is crucial.

• Addressing maternal health issues, such as postpartum haemorrhage, can reduce mortality and improve workforce participation.

• Increased funding for women's health research, mandatory inclusion of women in clinical trials, and addressing societal biases are crucial

Women in Employment 

• Increase in Female Labour Participation: The 2024 Time Use Survey (TUS) shows an increase in women’s employment-related participation from 21.8% (2019) to 25% (2024).

• Gender Disparities in Time Spent on Work: Women’s domestic workload only slightly reduced (299 to 289 minutes), and caregiving responsibilities increased (134 to 137 minutes), while men’s contribution to domestic work declined from 97 to 88 minutes and care work stagnated (76 to 75 minutes).

• Statistical Invisibility of Women’s Work: 

• The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) underestimates female workforce participation by excluding unpaid domestic and care work.

• Studies using UN System of National Accounts (UN-SNA) frameworks found that rural women’s labour force participation is 1.5 times higher than PLFS estimates, leading to policy invisibility of women’s work.

• Women’s Economic Empowerment: National Rural and Urban Livelihood Missions have connected nearly 100 million women to financial networks via self-help groups.

• Challenges:  The gender pay gap, limited access to leadership positions, and workplace discrimination, including sexual harassment,  struggle with balancing work and family responsibilities and lack of adequate support like affordable childcare.

• Way forward: Implementing pay transparency, enforcing anti-discrimination policies, providing affordable childcare, promoting flexible work arrangements, and fostering inclusive leadership are crucial steps.

Women in Education

Women Reformers and Their Contributions

• Savitribai Phule (Maharashtra): Established India’s first school for girls (1848), fought against untouchability and widow remarriage.

• Fatima Sheikh (Maharashtra):  First Muslim woman educator, worked with Phule in promoting education for lower-caste girls.

• Pandita Ramabai (Karnataka): Founded Arya Mahila Samaj (1882) to promote women's education and fight child marriage.

• Chandraprabha Saikiani (Assam): Established a girls' school at 13, removed gender barriers at Assam Sahitya Sabha (1925), and fought against opium use.

• Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (Bengal): Founded schools for Muslim girls (1909, 1911) and wrote Sultana’s Dream, envisioning gender equality.

• Sarala Ray (Bengal): Founded Gokhale Memorial Girls’ School (1920) and College (1938), promoting multilingual education.

Areas of Progress

• Free education is provided up to high school in all 28 States and Union Territories, benefiting 12 crore girls.

• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao has improved the child sex ratio and increased school enrolment for girls

• Improved sanitation has reduced menstruation-related absences, with UNICEF supporting broader linkages.

•  The Department of Science and Technology (DST) launched the Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI) pilot in 2020 to foster an inclusive environment for women and gender-diverse individuals in STEM.

• Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan has trained over 35 million rural women in digital literacy, aiding their participation in the digital economy.

• The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has enabled more women to engage in digital transactions and investments.

Representation in STEM

• Underrepresentation in STEM: Only 20% of students in premier STEM institutions (IITs, AIIMS, CSIR) and faculty members are women, reflecting gender disparity in science and technology.

• Challenges

• Women’s contributions remain overshadowed (Matilda Effect) and overlooked in academic settings.

• Women struggle to return after career breaks due to age restrictions on grants and lack of structured mentorship.

• Women in STEM experience biased hiring, fewer promotions and unequal funding leading to higher attrition rates and restricted professional growth.

• Way Forward

•  Early intervention, engaging parents, educators, and the broader social environment, is the key to lasting impact.

• Remove age barriers for grants, establish mentorship programmes, and increase women’s leadership roles in decision-making.

• Implement flexible work policies, affordable childcare, and work-life balance measures to improve retention.

• Promote successful women in STEM while exposing biases

Women in Corporate Leadership

• Women’s Workforce Participation: Women comprise about 35.9% of India’s worker population ratio, but their representation in senior and middle management roles is only 12.7% as of 2024.

• Legal Mandates for Gender Diversity: The Companies Act, 2013, mandated at least one woman director on the boards of certain public limited companies, and SEBI’s 2015 regulation required at least one independent woman director in the top 1,000 listed companies.

• Increase in Women Directors: The proportion of women directors on NSE 500 listed companies’ boards has grown from 5% in 2011 to 18% in 2023, largely due to regulatory mandates.

• Benefits of Women in Leadership: 

• Research shows that women in leadership improve corporate governance, strategic oversight, risk management, stakeholder engagement, and accountability.

• Companies with more women in leadership rank higher on ethical business, best workplace, and corporate citizenship lists.

• Challenges in Achieving Real Impact: Women are often appointed to leadership roles to meet regulatory quotas rather than given real decision-making power, and gender pay gaps persist despite increasing representation.

• Future Action: 

• True gender diversity is achieved when women hold top executive roles (C-Suite/KMPs), independent directorships, and board committee chair positions.

• Despite progress, companies and regulators must strengthen gender diversity beyond tokenism and ensure lasting structural change.

Women in Public Spaces

• Gendered Spatial Control and Mobility Restrictions: According to NFHS-4 (2015-16), only 54% of women could visit markets alone, 50% could access healthcare independently, and 48% were allowed to travel outside their village unaccompanied, showing deep-rooted restrictions on their mobility.

• Low Female Workforce Participation: The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023-24 shows that India’s female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is 35.6%, indicating that a large section of women remains outside the workforce, limiting their interaction with public spaces.

• Initiatives in Addressing Gender-Based Violence:

• 770 one stop centres provide medical, legal, and psychological support to survivors of violence.

• Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita enforced in July 2024, strengthens legal protections and improves women's safety and justice.

• UN Population Fund and Rajasthan Police Academy partnership has improved survivor trust and access to justice.

• Challenge

• Women use public spaces primarily for transit between home and work, avoiding recreational activities due to fear of harassment and violence. 

• Public areas like footpaths, bus stops, and narrow streets remain unsafe, while malls and cafes offer relatively safer curated spaces.

• Perpetrators of public harassment and gender-based violence often secure bail and repeat crimes due to low conviction rates.

• Women regulate their body language and behaviour in public spaces to conform to the male gaze..

• Way Forward

•  Governments must improve street lighting, public toilets, street furniture (benches), and recreational areas for women while enforcing strict laws against harassment in public spaces.

• Women should be encouraged to use public spaces for leisure, challenging societal norms.

• Society must stop blaming women for being in “wrong places at the wrong time” and instead focus on creating a culture where women can freely navigate public spaces without fear or restriction

• A truly inclusive space allows women to move freely without urgency or fear, asserting their right to exist without justification.

Women in Politics

• Political Representation:

• The Women’s Reservation Bill guarantees 33% legislative representation, building on local governance successes.

• Nearly 1.5 million women hold leadership positions in local governance, forming the largest cohort of women political leaders globally.

• Challenges: The patriarchal attitude of the society, relentless attack on women in politics, systematic barriers, etc contribute to the widening disparity in women in the political sphere.

• Way Forward: Implementing women's reservation in legislatures, enforcing political party quotas, providing leadership training and ensuring protection against harassment can enhance women's participation in politics.

Gender Indices and India's Performance

• Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) (2024)

• Published by UNDP, it assesses gender disparities in human development.

• According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2024, India ranked 129 out of 146 countries, dropping two places from 2023 (127th).

• Estimated time to achieve full gender parity: 134 years.

• Women, Peace, and Security Index (2023-24)

• India ranked 128 out of 177 countries, highlighting the urgent need for safer public spaces.

  

• Gender Inequality Index (GII) (2022)
  
  

• Developed by UNDP, it measures gender disparity across reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market participation.

• India's score: 0.437, ranking 108 out of 193 countries.

• Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) Report 2023

• GSNI is published by UNDP with a focus on understanding the role of social beliefs in obstructing gender equality along four dimensions: political, educational, economic, and physical integrity.

• The report highlights that over 99.22% of people in India hold at least one bias against women, with 92.39% justifying intimate partner violence or restricting reproductive rights.

CONCLUSION

PYQ MAPPING

SAMPLE QUESTION

Tags:
Society

Keywords:
Accelerating Gender Equality Gender Equality SDG5 SDG10 Beijing Declaration Women International Women’s Day Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana Female Labour Participation Triple Burden Feminization of Agriculture National Rural and Urban Livelihood Mission STEM education Global Gender Gap Index Gender Inequality Index Gender Budget