Democracy remains the key to women’s equality

Democracy remains the key to women’s equality

International Women’s Day serves to remind us, lost, as we tend to be, in the hurly-burly of daily toil, of a vital goal of equality that has not only not been achieved ever since it was recognised as a vital part of social emancipation but appears as remote today as it was a decade ago.
Gender equality should not be the concern of women alone, but of all citizens who want to live in a democratic polity and an equitable society. Sure, this cannot be achieved by dedicating one day to the cause. But that one day should serve to re-examine the work agenda towards equality and rededicate every organisation to this goal.
In India, the next step towards gender justice varies, depending on one’s location. In some parts, it is ending female foeticide and getting girls into schools. In some circles, it is progressing to paternity leave. In some religions, it is ending bias rooted in personal law, in others, it is bringing tradition and practice in line with reformed laws. In a place like Nagaland, customary law precludes women from political leadership, putting it at odds with the basic spirit of the Constitution. Unlike in countries with a relatively more even spread of social development, in India, the relative liberation of working women, especially those in the organised sector, from the drudgery of unpaid, unrecognised domestic work comes at the expense of less fortunate women, who are still redeemed from abject poverty by the menial jobs they perform at other people’s homes. But all women live under the shadow of sexual violence in India, whether actresses, call centre executives working late in the office or returning home at dusk, rural women stepping out to relieve themselves or just about any woman deemed, as per the norms of patriarchal tradition, to be transgressing codes of propriety in terms of dress, place, time or the gender of her companion.
Yes, there are horrid acid attacks by spurned men, but there are also women who increasingly break the glass ceiling or fight back against sexual harassment at the workplace. Stronger democracy is what all women need, along with men.