Breaking The Glass Walls

Context: Implicit biases, stereotypes keep women from fulfilling their potential.

Understanding gender equality

• According to United Nations, gender equality refers to equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys.
• It is a moral, business and an intellectual imperative: It is undebatable and independent of profession or affiliation or gender. Gender equality benefits both men and women.
• Feminism is the notion that each individual should be free to develop their own talents and not be held back by man-made barriers. 

Facets of gender inequality in India

• Implicit biases and gender stereotypes: Stereotypes related to gender brilliance or gender-based intrinsic aptitude or domestic responsibilities are instances of implicit bias.
  • Girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks.
  • Often unnoticed: Implicit biases generate inequity which remains unnoticed.
• Personal barriers: Includes notions of compromise and sacrifice that are ingrained in women. It is another reflection of culture and society.
  • This feeds into how women present themselves and the opportunities they take advantage of and also shape the responsibilities they are entrusted with.
  • Women receive lower-quality health care than men and have restricted access to contraceptives.
• External barriers: Relate to subtle, and often unspoken, societal and cultural cues which reinforce how men and women “ought” to behave.
  • Absolute patriarchal entrenchment, causing even women to be sceptical about their abilities, to accept the roles set for them in the household and to trade empowerment for male protection.
  • Society prescribed age limit as to when one should get married.
  • Low labour force participation, only 18% of women employed as compared to 47 per cent men.
• Glass walls - Gender segregation in high-level jobs with more men in strategic functions and women in support functions.
  • Benevolent sexism where well-intended men can inadvertently “kill careers with kindness”, and socialised masculine behaviours which dissuade women from certain occupational choices.
  • Eg. Only recently, women officers from "combat-support arms" have for the first time been cleared for promotion to the rank of Colonel (time-scale) in the Army
• Problem in STEM in India: Many girls in India study STEM subjects (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) but the number of women who stay on and pursue higher degrees and then go on to higher positions are fewer.
  • Pull back factors: What matter here are the decisions of marriage and childbearing, and the fact that a woman’s well-being and dignity are not necessarily in her hands.
• India’s women empowerment paradox: There are women in powerful positions in many fields but, at the same time, several women have minimal rights.
• Violence as tool gender oppression: High rate of crimes against women, including murder, rape, and female infanticide are still a continuing practice, even in urban pockets. 

Way forward

• Awareness and education: Gender sensitisation involves being cognisant of biological differences, recognising the needs of either sex and creating safe spaces without gender bias.
  • Create awareness of inherent injustice and biases: There has been a very gradual change in the representation and the status of women globally. The rate of change definitely needs to increase by several orders of magnitude.
• Overcoming social, economic and cultural barriers, and implicit biases at the grassroots: There a need for a major upheaval in mindsets about gender in India, a social and cultural change in what is perceived as right and wrong for women.
• Policies that help women advance in science and society globally are needed.