Make women’s day count for real

Make women’s day count for real

March 8, celebrated as International Women’s Day, commemorates the struggles and advances made by women in society. In India, as in the rest of the world, women’s rights remain a work in progress. The most recent win for women in India was the Supreme Court’s decision to allow women to serve fully in the armed forces. However, skewed sex ratios, particularly in the 0-5 year age cohort, even in socially progressive states such as Kerala, suggest that women in India face far tougher odds than discrimination in the armed forces.

The persistent demand of women for security in public places, even in the national capital, offers telling commentary on the status of women. The ten percentage point decline in women’s labour force participation rate over the last 15 years is on account, only in part, of more girls staying back in education. The proportion of girls not in employment, education or training is around four times as that for boys. The litany can go on and on. But the reality is that there is also progress, substantive and real. Total fertility rate has been coming down ever closer to the replacement level of 2.1 children, on average, per woman. Women’s life expectancy and literacy rates have steadily gone up. Maternal mortality rate has fallen sharply. Affordable homes are registered with women as owner or co-owner. Among the upper strata of society, work and entrepreneurship are the norm rather than the exception for women, although most come up against a glass ceiling near the top.

Welcome legislative changes such as abolition of instant divorce among Muslim women have been followed by women placing themselves at the forefront of assertive political protest as well. Which is all to the good, as, in history, women have advanced only through struggle, often militant.