Gender equality and women empowerment should not be debatable issue

A  popular Hindi proverb in a bit of a fragmented version says, “Mukheno Merton Jagat.”  Why I start this article in this informal fashion?  Because despite the people in various countries accept the fact that the issue of gender inequality must be eradicated  and the women empowerment must be  given equal preference without any discrimination as the male fraternity receives, in reality, even after 15 years of promotion of gender equality and giving power to women, the world remains a place to show an indifferent attitude to both these issues. It is said that worldwide almost one in three women suffer sexual violence and whenever the said type of incidence occurs, there will be a huge hue and cry to punish the perpetrator.  The laws are so mute that they are not able to take any quick action, particularly in India and other developing and backward countries. The oppression, atrocities, rape, physical torture on women are unpardonable social injustice and almost everywhere people raise their voices incessantly, but still statistics show that respect for women, inequality and women empowerment are only a matter of discussions. Hours together, we deliberate on these issues in various forums, but the end result is a big zero.

Coming to the income disparity, women earn less than 30% as compared to men’s income.  The literacy level of the population of adult people shows that the majority of the illiterates are women.  As per the record, about 1.2 billion people worldwide earns less than Rs. 100/- per day and India is the world’s extreme poor living country.  

The United Nations has provided a gloomy data on women and poverty, drawing a correlation between these two parameters.  As per this data, Beijing is trying to take various measures to increase the level of gender equality and empowerment to women.

The abode of the extreme poor population of various countries in the world is lying with the Asian countries and they are India, China, Bangladesh and cumulated these countries constitute almost 50% of the people living in poverty. With respect to gender inequality, another factor of utmost concern is the life expectancy. The average life expectancy of women population in high-income countries is higher as compared to low-income countries. Statistically, all over the world, women are the most sufferers with respect to their own financial adequacy. In fact, 1.3 billion women do not have any access to a financial institution and that is why they do not have a bank account.  These female fraternities suffer most due to pathetic living condition.  

With respect to the education of school going children, the scenarios of the urban areas are comparatively better than the rural areas.  In urban areas, the girl or female child at least expects a bit of an education depending on the family’s income status.  If the parents are financially somewhat solvent, then the girl child gets a good and reasonable education and where the financial condition is a burden, they get less support to carry out the their education. But in the rural area, now also, the rate of the illiteracy is quite high, particularly in poor countries. In most of the rural areas, the girls are employed for household jobs, fetching water, cleaning houses, cooking foods and ultimately getting deprived to get the light of education.

: 2 :

Another aspect is IT, where the women are not that accessible to internet connection.  In developing countries, women are 23% less likely than men to be online.

During the past two decades, many voluntary organizations, NGOs and Social Media are trying their level best to reduce the gender inequality and advocate for more women representation in various political and social organizations, institutions and autonomous bodies, but still the world lags to protect the human rights of women.143 countries out of total 195 countries surveyed so far are screaming all the time for a gender equality and they  want to legalize the concept through a constitutional binding as of 2014.But they find it extremely difficult to legalize the matter and convert this issue as a rule. Observing the discrimination, inequality and accepting certain roles as a guaranteed one for all the women, it can be easily said that our society is  full of hypocrisy and we show our  lip sympathy only to this crucial issue. Even in today’s hi-tech world, there are some countries where the non-national spouses are  denied the right to acquire property.

At the same time, there are countries like Singapore, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland and Netherlands where gender inequality is relatively low or nil.  Here the women get adequate respect, which they deserve.  They have every right to perform all the duties and responsibilities, which are earmarked for the men.  In fact, Singapore, which is relatively a small country, generally does not tolerate any heinous crime like physical and sexual torture or rape and the punishment is so severe that the people dare enough to show any discrimination between men and women.

Despite the world and its many countries, which are so much technologically advanced, have intellectual manpower and have vast resources, but we are yet to remove this gender inequality and  also not able to increase the women empowerment. So, it is tantamount to the fact that we only say, scream, shout and discuss earnestly in favor of this vital input, but not at all interested for any output or solution because we want to subjugate the women and ensure they must be controlled by us and that is the significance of the male chauvinism society.