The 1 in 31 issue house committees reflect larger male bias
Women MPs surely should have a strong say on the proposed Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill that seeks to raise the legal age of marriage for women to 21. But, as has been widely reported, the bill has been referred to a parliamentary standing committee – on education, women, children, youth and sports – that has exactly one woman MP out of 31 members. The fault is not this or that committee’s. The fault lies in how dominant male politicians who decide on committees, and election candidates think.For example, while at 110 – 81 in Lok Sabha and 29 in Rajya Sabha – the proportion of women in the 779-strong Parliament is still a low 14%, a standing committee on women’s issues doesn’t even reflect this proportion, nowhere close to it. Just one woman member in a 31-strong committee means women have 3% representation in a group that will decide the fate of millions of young women.
Data shows that women candidates have as good an electoral strike rate as their male counterparts. And politically investing in women is not just fair but also common sense with participation of women voters steadily increasing. Female voter turnout in the last Lok Sabha polls outdid male participation by 0.17 percentage points. This is new India. How long will our male netas across parties ignore it?
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