Gender Inequality

By Bhavika Jain

Frances Wrigh once said that ‘Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it;’ meaning that equality is from where liberty comes, and liberty is something which tells that freedom and equal rights to bring change in the world and this article, it is specially about freedom and equal rights for women. How women face problem, what are the causes, how does it affect us and why does it affect us? Globally, women have fewer opportunities for economic participation than men, less access to basic and higher education, greater health and safety risks, and less political representation which itself shows the inequality faced by women around the world. This problem is one of the issues conducted by the United Nations (sustainable development goals) ‘gender equality.’ It is important to be updated and change along with time looking at gender equality as a key topic because is it us who must do something about this issue as the overall goal of gender equality is to build a society in which women and men enjoy equal opportunities, rights, and do not face any obligations. Gender is a crucial factor in development and in our Indian society we must evolve, we must change.

It is a way of looking, it is the perspective of the society that decides how social norms and power structures affect the lives and opportunities available to everyone. Globally, more women than men live in poverty due to many reasons which have been faced due to people/ society not understanding. The reasons of women living in poverty can be Wage gap, women’s health, work, life balance, violence against women, empowerment, and opportunities. Women live in much poverty than men for several inter-connected reasons. Women are paid less than men. They have the same working hours, qualification in many cases better than men, and much more but still, women who work full time only earn around 60% compared to what men get. Women are also not safe. There are people who target women as sex objects, having no fear of law. This can lead to depression, and other health diseases which can lead to death. Looking at asking for better structures and support from Indian government, it takes time to reach out to somebody after facing a torment hard for you to believe. The Indian government has taken some steps forward but unfortunately, they are not incredibly supportive, and as per a survey taken by Times of India there are total 4.05 lakh crimes against women registered by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) during 2019, 1.26 lakh (over 30%) were that of domestic violence and now think that how many cases are there, not registered due to mental torment or fear of thinking what would the society think about. This does not stop here, there are a lot of problem faced by every woman each day. Would you like your daughter, sister, mother, or wife to face this? It is not that you should stop them going out, talk with everyone, socialize, but take small steps which may increase the safety of everyone. Be educated about current affairs and dangers which can harm you, be aware of who you should be with and how you should stay alert.

Today it is not only woman suffering but even their families, their children, parents, sisters and brothers scared, embarrassed and guilty about how they could have stopped injustice from permanently vanishing all the good memories and respect leaving a big scar mentally tearing apart the victim's dreams and ambitions.

Gender equality has been conclusively shown to stimulate economic growth, which is crucial for low-income countries as the job rate increases, well-being becomes better, everyone gets educated, women get their rights, and everything is well settled. It is we who need to take a step forward because the future depends on us, our loved ones trust us, and we want our world to become united. We should Educate, educate everyone, allow everyone to come forward, give equal opportunities, and grow. We should also evolve, stay updated with current affairs, take a step forward, bring change and become the change, become an inspiration for anyone who thinks that women are less than men and change their mindset.

By Bhavika Jain