PRESENTATION ON GENDER INEQUALITY

• SUPMITIED BY :

SHUBHAM GUPTA7-A

ROLL NO. : 26

What Is Gender?

• Gender describes the role ,rights and responsibilities that society consider s appropriate for men and women .

• It refers to social ,economic and cultural attributes and opportunities associates with being a male or female.

• Gender roles ,responsibilities inequalities and differences are not the same in various societies .

Gender Inequality

Gender inequality refers to disparity between individuals due to gender. Gender is constructed both socially through social interactions as well as biologically through chromosomes, brain structure, and hormonal differences.

Gender Inequality Gender inequality has been prevalent in all

societies for centuries and continues to exist even today .

An example of gender prejudice is female foeticide . The widespread practice of aborting female foeticide happens every day: the reality of gender inequality in India, origin of gender inequality and how to deactivate it.

One of the most evil forms of discrimination faced by a girl after marriage is the practice of dowry .

Some of the factors responsible for gender inequality

• Illiteracy : Itinerancy is one of the factors responsible for gender inequality. According to 2001 census of India., the literacy level in India is 65.38% in which the male literacy level is 75.85% and female literacy level is only 54.16%.

• Child Marriage : Children specially the girls are married at a very young age. This proves fatal for their overall development and have a negative impact on their health, too.

• Social evils : Social evils like dowry system, sati system, are also responsible for the low status of women.

• Discrimination against the girl child : The girl child is not treated properly in the family. People still prefer the birth of a boy rather than a girl. The girl child is basically trained for household work only. Even today, female infanticide is a common social evil.

Types Of Gender Inequalities

There are many kinds of gender inequality or gender disparity which are as follows:

• Inequality in Family • Natality inequality• Professional or Employment inequality• Ownership inequality• Household inequality• Special opportunity inequality

Inequality in Family Gender roles in parenting and marriage

• Sigmund Freud suggested that biology determines gender identity through identification with either the mother or father. While some people agree with Freud, others argue that the development of the gendered self is not completely determined by biology based around one's relationship to the penis, but rather the interactions that one has with the primary caregiver(s).

• According to the non-Freudian view, gender roles develop through internalization and identification during childhood. From birth, parents interact differently with children depending on their sex, and through this interaction parents can instill different values or traits in their children on the basis of what is normative for their sex. This internalization of gender norms can be seen through the example of which types of toys parents typically give to their children (“feminine” toys often reinforce interaction, nurturing, and closeness, “masculine” toys often reinforce independence and competitiveness).[1] Education also plays an integral role in the creation of gender norms.[19]

• Gender roles permeate throughout life and help to structure parenting and marriage, especially in relation to work in and outside the home.

Inequality in Family • Polygamy is legal for Muslims and it also exists to some

extent among Hindus, particularly in cases where the first wife has not given birth to any sons.

• Repudiation is also legal for Muslims. For persons of other religious beliefs, the divorce proceedings have been equal for men and women since 1976. Divorce by mutual consent is legal but in reality, any woman who initiates a divorce is condemned by the public opinion. For that reason, divorces are very rare.

• The father alone detains parental authority in Hindu and Muslim families. His authority is partially limited only in educated and urban families. In the event of divorce, the law assures some equality with regards to child custody, but any advantages granted to the mother in this aspect are rarely exercised as divorces are not common practice.

• The old Hindu traditions favored men in matters of inheritance: only sons – not daughters - could inherit their parents. After independence, however, these traditions were abolished by law. But in the North, nothing has really changed and women are still deprived of inheritance.

Inequality in Family

Progress in making gender roles more equal• Despite the increase in women in the labor force since the mid-1900s,

women are still responsible for the majority of the domestic chores and childcare. While women are splitting their time between work and care of the home, men are pressured into being the primary economic supporter of the home.[20] Despite the fact that different households may divide chores more evenly, there is evidence that supports that women have retained the primary caregiver role within familial life despite contributions economically. This evidence suggest that women who work outside the home often put an extra 18 hours a week doing household or childcare related chores as opposed to men who average 12 minutes a day in childcare activities.[21] In addition to a lack of interest in the home on the part of some men, some women may bar men from equal participation in the home which may contribute to this disparity.

Sex ratio (for making gender roles more equal)

• Sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. The primary sex ratio is the ratio at the time of conception, secondary sex ratio is the ratio at time of birth, and tertiary sex ratio is the ratio of mature organisms.

Current Sex Ratio of India 2012 940 females for every 1,000 males

Total Male Population in India 2012 628,800,000 (628.8 million)

Total Female Population in India 2012 591,400,000 (591.4 million)

Currently, there are about 51 births in India in 1 minute.

Natality inequality

• In this type of inequality a preference is given for boys over girls that many male-dominated societies have, gender inequality can manifest itself in the form of the parents wanting the newborn to be a boy rather than a girl. There was a time when this could be no more than a wish (a daydream or a nightmare, depending on one's perspective), but with the availability of modern techniques to determine the gender of the foetus, sex-selective abortion has become common in many countries. It is particularly prevalent in East Asia, in China and South Korea in particular, but also in Singapore and Taiwan, and it is beginning to emerge as a statistically significant phenomenon in India and South Asia as well.

Professional or Employment inequality

• In terms of employment as well as promotion in work and occupation, women often face greater handicap than men. A country like Japan and India may be quite egalitarian in matters of demography or basic facilities, and even, to a great extent, in higher education, and yet progress to elevated levels of employment and occupation seems to be much more problematic for women than for men. The example of employment inequality can be explained by saying that men get priority in seeking job than women.

Ownership inequality

• In many societies the ownership of property can also be very unequal. Even basic assets such as homes and land may be very asymmetrically shared. The absence of claims to property can not only reduce the voice of women, but also make it harder for women to enter and flourish in commercial, economic and even some social activities. This type of inequality has existed in most parts of the world, though there are also local variations. For example, even though traditional property rights have favored men in the bulk of India.

Household Inequality• There are often enough, basic inequalities in gender relations within

the family or the household, which can take many different forms. Even in cases in which there are no overt signs of anti-female bias in, say, survival or son-preference or education, or even in promotion to higher executive positions, the family arrangements can be quite unequal in terms of sharing the burden of housework and child care. It is, for example, quite common in many societies to take it for granted that while men will naturally work outside the home, women could do it if and only if they could combine it with various inescapable and unequally shared household duties. This is sometimes called "division of labour," though women could be forgiven for seeing it as "accumulation of labour." The reach of this inequality includes not only unequal relations within the family, but also derivative inequalities in employment and recognition in the outside world. Also, the established fixity of this type of "division" or "accumulation" of labour can also have far-reaching effects on the knowledge and understanding of different types of work in professional circles.

Special opportunity inequality

• Even when there is relatively little difference in basic facilities including schooling, the opportunities of higher education may be far fewer for young women than for young men. Indeed, gender bias in higher education and professional training can be observed even in some of the richest countries in the world, in India too. Sometimes this type of division has been based on the superficially innocuous idea that the respective "provinces" of men and women are just different.

Steps taken by Government :

•Equal Rights•Women education•Support for Training and Employment Programme (step) •Rashtriya Mahila kosh (RMK) •Protection from Domestic Violence Bill, 2002•Participation in local bodies

Equal Rights :

Before independence, women were not given any political rights but at present all women who are of the age of 18 years or above have been given the right to vote like those of men. The Government of India has passed the Hindu Code Bill and Kamla Act to give equal share to the women in the property of their parents.

Women education :• Illiteracy among the women is the basic cause

of gender inequality. So the Government of India is emphasizing on women education. For this, many new schools and colleges have been opened exclusively for women. To promote education among women two most important schemes i.e. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan” and “Mhila Samkhya” have been implemented.

Support for Training and Employment Programme (STEP) :

• Under the programme of Supoort for Training and Employment government is providing training especially to woment in new technologies in agriculture, dairying, horticulture, fisheries, handicrafts etc.

Rashtriya Mahila kosh (RMK) :

RASHTRIYA MAHILA KOSH WAS ESTABLISHED TO SANCTION CREDIT TO WOMEN. SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 1993, THE RMK HAS SANCTIONED CREDIT WORTH

RS. 113.50 CRORE.

Protection from Domestic Violence Bill, 2002 :

• The incidents of domestic violence are higher among the low Socio- Economic Classes (SECs). There are various instances of an inebriated husband beating up the wife often leading to severe injuries. Domestic violence is also seen in the form of physical abuse. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 came into force on October, 26, 2006.

Participation in local bodies :

• By the 73rd and 74 th. Constitutional Amendments, one-third of seats have been reserved for women in local bodies. There is also a proposal to provide one-third sealts reservation for women in the House of People and state Legislative Assemblies has been passed by the Parliament. This is indeed a great step towards the upliftment of women in India.