How women in India face discrimination and oppression in various ways? Explain with example.
Women face disadvantages and are discriminated against them in various ways in India:
- Literacy rate among women is only 54% in comparison to 76% among men. In studies, girls mostly perform better than boys, but they drop out simply because their parents prefer to spend their resources on their boys’ education. A smaller proportion of girls go for higher studies.
- On an average, a woman works more than an average man every day, since much of her work is not paid for, therefore often it is not valued.
- The Equal Remuneration Act 1976 provides for equal wages for equal work. But in almost areas of work from sports of cinema, from factories to fields, women are comparatively paid less even if men and women both do exactly the same work.
- The child sex ratio is very low. In India, the national average is 914. In some places, it is as low as 850 or even 800, because parents prefer to have sons so they get the girl child aborted before her birth.
- In urban areas, women are unsafe. Even in their homes, they suffer from beating, harassment and other forms of domestic violence.