Raising women’s marriage age to 21 is move towards empowerment

 

Guru Prakash, Ruchi Singh write: No excuse — biological, social, or data and research-based — can justify the inequality in age between men and women to enter into a valid marriage

India has taken a progressive step to realise Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Goal 5 categorically asks nation-states to formulate policies to achieve gender equality. The Centre recently gave a final shape to this goal by ensuring equality in marriage age by raising the marriageable age for women to 21 years.

India had ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1993. Article 16 of the Convention strictly forbids child marriage and asks governments to identify and enforce the minimum marriage age for women. Since 1998, India has had national legislation exclusively on human rights protections drafted in consonance with international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. Protection of women against early and child marriage is a protection of their basic rights and this monumental step will lead to changes in related legislative frameworks to provide a comprehensive rights-based framework for the aadhi aabadi.

The regressive perception that marriage provides women with social protections and recognition needs to change. It has been established that child marriage exposes women to early pregnancy, malnutrition, and violence (mental, emotional, and physical). Such marriages have, therefore, been brought under the ambit of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. However, Section 2(a) of the Act declares women under the age of 18 to be children while for men this age is 21. This difference seems to have no justifiable logic. The age of voting can be equal for men and women under the Representation of Peoples Act, and the age to consensually, wilfully, and validly enter into a contract is the same for men and women. What has stopped us from instilling equality in the age requirements to enter into a valid marriage? This difference in criteria was more social than biological. The general arguments based on local value judgments that women should be younger in a marriage union have faded with time. Today, women stand on equal footing to men in all possible spheres of life.Equality emanates from equal laws and social transformations are both the precursors of laws and a consequence of them. A change in law also fundamentally changes social perceptions in progressive societies.

The equality in marriage age brought about by the Narendra Modi government will add to its many initiatives to promote women’s education. As per the All-India Survey on Higher Education, the enrolment of female students in higher education has increased from 46.2 per cent in 2015-16 to 49 per cent in 2019-20. The overall growth of female student enrolment between 2015-2020 has increased by 18.2 per cent. It is notable that from Ujjwala to Mudra to Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana, the largest section of beneficiaries of government schemes has been the women. For the first time in Indian politics, we are witnessing remarkable levels of representation of women at crucial decision-making positions from the Union Council of Ministers to party structures. Women’s empowerment will get a further fillip with equality in marriage age.

The institution of marriage in India is one of the pillars that hold up the customs and norms of society. Several arguments have been raised on why shouldn’t the government make the existing legislation on the prohibition of the Child Marriage Act more stringent or make such marriages void ab initio in all cases. But we often tend to forget about equal rights for women in terms of their age of marriage. Presently a child marriage is voidable and the law gives the parties two years from the date of solemnisation to file a petition to nullify it. If men can nullify such a marriage till the age of 23, why should this age be just 20 years for women?

Sometimes, objective equality is the need of the hour. Any justification — biological, social, or data and research-based — cannot justify the inequality in age between men and women to enter into a valid marriage. India decided in 1954 with the Special Marriage Act that age must be one of the basic requisites of a valid marriage. The only flaw was not having equality in this regard. That is being corrected. The NITI Aayog task force constituted under the leadership of the Prime Minister has done a commendable job in proposing such a move to empower India’s daughters and sisters.

Written by Guru Prakash , Ruchi Singh

Source: Indian Express, 6/01/22

Unequal access to toilets remains a worry, and is central to global feminist movement

 

Inadequate toilet accommodations reflect society’s bias against women in the workplace and public spaces and reinforce the notion that women belong at home

Kalpana Narvekar lives in a ramshackle slum, encroached across two office buildings in Mumbai’s commercial Fort district. The nearest public toilet is well over 15 minutes away by foot. Navrekar and her three young children either walk to the public toilet or relieve themselves on the side of the road, which is often the case. For her sons, this usually isn’t a problem but for Navrekar and her daughter, every time they need to use the toilet, they risk exposing themselves to strangers. In one particularly troubling incident, her daughter, who was suffering from diarrhoea, could not hold it long enough to find a secluded spot. As a result, she was forced to defecate near a busy road and was verbally abused by several motorists who were mostly men.

Lack of access to public toilets is a wide-spread problem in India. For women, whose bodies are particularly objectified, this poses massive ramifications in terms of safety, comfort, and health. Compounding the problem, public infrastructure is designed to cater to men. A report in 2012 found that there are almost twice as many public toilets for men than there are for women in Mumbai. Additionally, the toilets that do exist, lack proper hygiene standards and are often unsafe. A 2017 study by ActionAid India found that 35 per cent of the 229 toilets surveyed in Delhi did not have a separate section for women, 53 per cent did not have running water and 45 per cent did not have mechanisms to lock the door from inside.

Globally as well, the issue of unequal toilet access has a special place in the feminist movement. In 2012, women in China protested against the lack of public toilets for women by using men’s lavatories. In America, advocacy has resulted in legislation that mandates building standards which prioritise women’s restrooms, and laws that prohibit commercial spaces from failing to provide adequate facilities for women. The so-called potty parity movement is not a critical component of the feminist movements today, however, it is a topic worthy of consideration given the significant ramifications of une

How it works

Studies have shown that women take, on average, twice as long to use the restroom as men. These studies consider only the time used to urinate and don’t factor in the use of a bathroom as a social space. According to John Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University and the ‘father of potty parity,’ there are a number of factors that contribute to this divide. For men, using the toilet usually involves zipping down their pants and peeing into a urinal. In contrast, women have to unbutton their clothing, pull down their pants and make contact with the toilet seat whenever they pee. One in four women are also menstruating at any given point, which increases bathroom time due to the need to use and dispose of sanitary products. Additionally, two groups that take longer on average to pee include children and the elderly. Given that women are often responsible for childcare, and that there are more older women than men, this also contributes to the problem. Perhaps most importantly, urinals take up less space than cubicles, so men’s restrooms tend to accommodate more people at a time.

Speaking with indianexpress.com, Banzhaf states that having to use the restroom is an “immutable problem,” and therefore, denying women the same provisions as men violate their right to equality enshrined by law. Having to wait longer to use the restroom, or not having access to one at all, can cause a myriad of problems. Banzhaf notes that women often suffer from medical issues for having to hold in their pee and have fewer opportunities to network and socialise at public gatherings. Referring to the constraints as a “urinary leash,” Banzhaf argues that for many women, the lack of access to toilet can be a deterrent from straying too far away from home.

Additionally, for women in male dominated fields like construction and agricultural work, lack of toilet access can even prevent them from working. In 2004, Danish Khan, a Mumbai-based reporter, surveyed a number of public toilets in the city’s railway stations. He found that most toilets were closed due to clogged drains and some stations lacked facilities for women altogether. This in turn, he asserts, disincentives women from using public transportation, and limits their ability to work.

Kathreyn Anthony, a professor of architecture at the University of Illinois, who spoke with indianexpress.com, argues in a seminal paper on potty parity, that long lines for women’s restrooms can also have commercial implications especially at venues like sporting stadiums and concert halls when the demand for toilets peak at particular times. “Rather than face a long wait,” says Anthony, “women feel compelled to curtail or avoid liquid intake” which means they’re less likely to purchase concessions than men. The lack of availability and cost of sanitary products similarly hinder their ability to access and enjoy public spaces. Pregnant women and women with UTIs who find it harder to hold in their pee are also disproportionately affected.

While it is impossible to measure the economic and social costs of unequal access, Anthony does point to several scenarios that highlight the need for potty parity. She notes that in New York, several female taxi drivers quit their jobs because of a lack of public toilets while male drivers often just peed in a jar under their seat. Additionally, Anthony argues that while men can use unhygienic toilets, women, who have to touch the seat while peeing, face particular health risks from doing so. She also mentions that paid toilets, which have now been discontinued in the US, discriminate against women because men can use urinals for free and can pee in open spaces. In India, paid toilets still exist.

The impure woman

Despite the fact that toilets play a significant role in our lives, historically, very little consideration has been given to female restrooms. According to Harvey Molotch, a Distinguished Professor at NYU, who spoke with indianexpress.com, this is because women are associated with “purity and cleanliness.” People don’t like to think of women using the toilet, which in turn, stigmatises the issue. The lack of discussion around women’s toilets means that in terms of policy, very little is done. According to Molotch, women are considered to be guardians of the home, and few public spaces were designed to accommodate their needs. Since 1857, the American Institute of Architects has had 97 presidents, of which, only five have been women. Lack of representation of women in architecture and construction reflects the lack of priority given to their sanitation needs equal toilet access.

Until very recently, workplaces dominated by men failed to include provisions for women.In fact, it took until 2011 for female Representatives to get their own toilets in the US House. Up till then, they were forced to use the same toilets reserved for the general population. Given that men can, and do, pee on walls, legislators who tend to be overwhelmingly male, don’t consider potty parity to be a prevalent topic. According to Molotch, the lack of action can be attributed to the fact that potty parity is both a women’s issue and one that is greatly stigmatised. “It’s what you would call a double whammy of prejudice,” he says.

Despite that, there has been progress. Banzhaf notes that over the last few decades, things have improved in the US. Now, 20 out of 50 states have potty parity legislation. However, that too comes with its drawbacks. For one, the legislation only applies to new buildings which means that existing establishments like courthouses and factories have to either break down men’s toilets and replace them with facilities for women, or disincentives women from accessing those spaces.

The former comes at a great cost which would have to be borne by the establishment. According to Molotch, there are “built in efficiencies” when it comes to existing buildings as it is difficult to repurpose hardware to convert men’s facilities into those suited for women. Anthony further argues that toilet parity is “really a controversy over economic resources.” She writes that “in the employment context, the concern is over who will bear the cost of incorporating women in the workforce” and outside the workplace, “the concern is who will bear how much cost in the public arena.”

In terms of the latter, there are historical incidents in which women have been unfairly targeted in order to meet toilet standards enshrined by law. Anthony references one such incident in her paper. In it, a Texas based company operated a factory with only one toilet for 80 workers, 95 per cent of whom were female. Instead of constructing more toilets in line with official regulations, the company fired twenty female workers. Thus, the laws, while being a step in the right direction, can be difficult to implement and/or come with trade-offs for both men and women.

What can be done

As stated previously, there are laws in the US which require new buildings to have two bathrooms for women for every one bathroom for men. In venues that accommodate large crowds, certain states have even mandated a 3:1 ratio. However, Banzhaf argues that while that legislation is useful to an extent, it doesn’t address the needs of existing structures. Pointing to changes made by his own University, he details three strategies that could be implemented instead to enable equal waiting times.

The first involves making men’s toilets unisex, so that women can either use a designated women’s restroom (where they may feel safer) or choose to share facilities with men. According to Banzhaf, most of his female students don’t have a problem with sharing a space with the opposite gender, however, he does acknowledge that the same may not be the case with other demographics, particularly the elderly.

The second option is to have unisex, single seater toilets like the ones you find on airplanes. This would eliminate the need for men and women to share a common space at the same time, but like the prospect of building more toilets, would be costly and take up a lot of acreage. Toilet design would have to be prioritised by architects and engineers in order for this to be feasible on a large scale and unfortunately, as Molotch notes, the people responsible for designing and maintaining these spaces often consider toilets only as an afterthought.

The third initiative involves constructing flexible bathrooms in places like concert halls or sporting arenas. Banzhaf states that there is evidence that different events attract different genders. For example, a stadium hosting a football match might see a lot of male fans on that day. If they were to host a gymnastics event the next day, they would then be more likely to witness an influx of women. Building toilets that are flexible would allow stadiums to convert them for men’s and women’s use respectively, on days where there is high demand for one or the other.

The quality of restrooms is also important, and Anthony argues that much more can be done with female restrooms in order to make them safer, more accessible, and better suited to women’s needs. She suggests employing more bathroom attendants so that women feel safer and also makes a case for female urinals so that more women can be accommodated at any single point of time. According to Anthony, menstrual products should be available in women’s restrooms so that women aren’t forced to run back home or risk soiling their pants in the event that they are unprepared for the onset of their period. Period tracking apps like Oky can also enable women to be better prepared in situations where restrooms don’t sell sanitary products. The menstrual cup, she adds, is another solution as it eliminates the need to dispose of pads or tampons and lasts almost twice as long as a standard large tampon thus reducing the need to change it frequently.

However, in countries like India where there is a stigma against unisex toilets and where menstrual products are not easily available, more creative solutions need to be found. Molotch suggests that India can reimagine entrances to bathrooms so that they are both visible from a distance and yet private enough to ensure safety and discretion. He says that in societies where caste differences are prominent, separate entrances can also be designed for different functions. For this, he provides the analogy of hotels. “When you enter the hotel as a guest, you have this large lavish door welcoming you whereas staff usually enter from a separate, more discreet door,” he says. If toilets were designed like hotels, people from different backgrounds can enter separately but ultimately share the same space.

India has made significant strides in improving sanitation measures. The Swachh Bharat campaign is actively promoting the construction of more toilets and better maintenance standards for existing ones. According to the Swachh Bharat website, the program has resulted in the construction of over 106 million toilets taking India’s rural sanitation coverage up from 39% seven years ago to 100% now. According to a study by the World Health Organization, the Swachh Bharat Mission in rural India was expected to prevent over 300,000 deaths from diarrhoea and malnutrition between 2014 and 2019. Coming at a cost of $14 billion, this campaign has produced tremendous results although the official statistics ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

Despite this progress, there is still a lot to be done. Outside of commercial establishments there are still far too few public toilets and given that restaurants and bars only allow customers use of their facilities, many poor people still face barriers to entry. In cities, public toilets for women are often overcrowded and lack basic hygiene standards. Having two toilets for women for every one toilet for men would help mitigate the problem. However, given that stalls take up more space than urinals and women take longer to pee, doubling the number of bathrooms alone may be insufficient.

Inadequate accommodations reflect society’s bias against women in the workplace and public spaces and reinforce the notion that women belong at home. Potty parity is an issue that people rarely discuss, and many feel uncomfortable with. However, unequal access represents a form of discrimination and should be addressed meaningfully at every level. Hopefully a combination of policy and investment will mean that by the time Navrekar’s daughter has children of her own, she won’t have to worry about their health and safety every time nature calls.

Written by Mira Patel

Source: Indian Express, 9/11/21

Looking beyond the corporate gender equity

 

What needs attention is self-image of women and their dissociation with sexuality

The past few years have seen a surge in gender equity conversations, whether on changing the laws to support women at the workplace or designing interventions in organisations to create a more equitable culture.

The most common programmes towards this include setting diversity targets, creating policies for a smooth transition back from maternity leave, and leadership programmes for women.

Deepa Agarwal has two decades of experience in the field of diversity and inclusion. Her work has been recognised by the Women Economic Forum, which awarded her the title of Exceptional Woman of Excellence, and the Centre of Global Inclusion, where she is now an expert panel member. She has been a visiting faculty member at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has broken new ground in the corporate sector working and consulting with large Indian and multinational companies, especially in the FMCG sector.

She is also a regular speaker at international forums such as the United Nations-Volunteers, the Forum of Emotional Intelligence, the Women Economic Forum, and Vividh. She now runs Re-Link, a research based advisory DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) firm.

“While all of these corporate policies and diversity programmes have helped moved the needle and more and more organisations are taking up the cause of gender equity, one of the aspects that is less talked about but needs attention is that of self-image and the dissociation with sexuality among women and the mental health issues associated with it,” she says.

“This is one of the reasons I wrote my recently launched book, The Hangover of Choices,” Deepa says.

“The leadership programmes for women are effective in helping them become more intentional about their careers, but these do not always touch upon the deep-seated mindsets and the deeper issues that are often the bigger roadblocks to equity in its truest sense.”

On the topic of the difference in traditional success parameters for men and women, she says, “Men are considered successful when their careers are flourishing and women are seen successful based on how well they are managing the domestic and home duties. Due to this, in spite of reaching the pinnacles of success at the corporate workplace, women tend to feel they are ‘not good enough’, and work harder and sometimes even change their behaviours in order to find acceptance. Here again, there is a dilemma: assertiveness in women is seen as aggressiveness, and not a desired quality for a woman to display. And yet, it is exactly this assertiveness, a celebrated attribute, that a leader should possess.”

The Hangover of Choices has received nationwide attention for its attempt to bring to the surface these unspoken aspects of mental health.

“The book has been presented in the form of fiction, to make it an engaging and a palatable read, rather than making it prescriptive. Through the story of the protagonist, my aim was to nudge the readers to take an honest look at themselves,” she says.

“There is pressure on women to look good and even perfect,” she says. “This is being amplified beyond proportions by the digitally altered world and filter-loaded images. A negative view of one’s own body has many repercussions leading to unhealthy lifestyles. At one extreme are over-exercising, over-dieting and/or restrictive eating. At the other, are overindulgence and an avoidance of being seen in public, especially of doing physical activities in public, from the fear of exposing oneself. All these create subtle stressors and mental health concerns,” she adds.

Source: The Hindu, 19/09/21

Why India needs a ‘feminist’ foreign policy

 On March 31, the World Economic Forum released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The index is based on four dimensions, where political participation maintains the largest gap globally, worse than the 2019 edition of the report. Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 per cent of parliamentary seats and 22 per cent of ministerial positions. India in some ways reflects this widening gap, where the number of ministers declined from 23.1 per cent in 2019 to 9.1 per cent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 per cent.

In a time when 104 countries still have laws preventing women from certain types of jobs, and over 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not punishable, a gendered approach has to be mainstreamed into broader policy objectives. This means going beyond conventional considerations of development assistance and domestic policies to include core areas of foreign policy, economics, finance, trade and security. This also means that along with increasing representation, women and marginalised sections of society need to have a voice to provide alternative perspectives to policy making.

A feminist foreign policy as a political framework explores this very realm, first introduced and advocated by Sweden in 2014. Feminist approaches to international affairs can be traced back to the 1980s. In many ways this translated to a bottom-up development approach, especially with a donor-based mindset that benefitted the recipient, albeit often with caveats. While this slowly changed in the 1990s, core areas of security and diplomacy were still the domain of men, and remain so. The realisation that it is not only necessary to include women in peacebuilding and peacekeeping but the wider gamut of diplomacy and foreign and security policy is growing, with data indicating that the inclusion of diverse voices makes for a better basket of options in decision making and is no longer simply a virtuous standard to follow.

Since Sweden embarked on this path, several other countries — Canada, France, Germany and, more recently, Mexico — have forged their own, adopting either a feminist foreign policy or a gendered approach to aspects of policy making. However, the current conversation around a feminist/gendered foreign policy is still largely in small circles in North America and Europe. Greater diversity in thinking will allow for a global policy to be tailored and thus operationalised in a wider geography, accounting for vastly divergent social norms and practices, and lived histories.

As a non-permanent member of the UNSC and recently elected to the UN Commission on the Status of Women for a four year term in September 2020, India has a key role to play. Gender considerations in India’s foreign policy are not new. Though located largely under the development assistance paradigm and peacekeeping, these have been incredibly successful. From 2007 when India deployed the first ever female unit to the UN Mission in Libya to supporting gender empowerment programmes through SAARC, IBSA, IORA and other multilateral fora, our programmes have been targeted at making women the engines for inclusive and sustainable growth. Many of our overseas programmes in partner countries have a gender component, as seen in Afghanistan, Lesotho and Cambodia. At home, 2015 saw a gender budget exercise within the MEA towards development assistance.

What is needed is a more formal designed approach that goes beyond a purely development model to wider access, representation and decision making. The WEF report and other similar indices is a call to do better on the domestic front; no matter how “feminist” our foreign and security policy might be, without balance at home it will not last.

In September 2020, India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador T N Trimurti said our election to the CSW was a “ringing endorsement of our commitment to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in all our endeavours”. We must now go further to sensitise and shape global discussions around gender mainstreaming. Our gender-based foreign assistance needs to be broadened and deepened and equally matched with lower barriers to participation in politics, diplomacy, the bureaucracy, military and other spaces of decision making. In doing this, India can easily claim a new unique feminist foreign policy adding to and smartly shaping the global conversation.

Written by Ambika Vishwanath

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 9, 2021 under the title ‘World according to women’. The writer is co-founder and director, The Kubernein Initiative

Source: Indian Express, 9/04/21

India’s women and the workforce

 Women are not dropping out. They are being pushed out by the lack of demand for their labour. There has been movement out of agriculture into informal and casual jobs, where the work is sporadic, and often less than 30 days at a stretch. The new modern sector opportunities, especially in high value-added service sectors, mostly accrue to men.Why is women’s employment declining in India? The thrust of the predominant explanations is that women are dropping out of paid work or the labour force either because of fear of sexual violence outside the home; or fear of being stigmatised by the community that might see their work as a marker of low status, i.e. the inability of the husband, the main breadwinner, to provide for the family; or a rise in conservative attitudes that believe a woman’s place is inside the home and kitchen, and that if the woman steps outside the socially approved threshold, it would invite a backlash.

All these explanations prima facie sound persuasive and plausible. But consider this. Recorded labour force participation rate (LFPR) of Indian women, never very high, logged a dramatic decline between 2004-05 and 2011-12. It has continued to decline thereafter, albeit at a lower rate. The bulk of the decline has been in the LFPR of rural women, with the sharpest decline seen in the case of Scheduled Tribe or Adivasi women.

How do the mainstream explanations fit in with this basic fact?

Research on the impact of sexual violence on female LFPRs focuses on urban areas; but urban female LFPRs, always lower than rural, have not registered a decline. My ongoing work with my PhD student Jitendra Singh shows virtually no correlation between crime statistics and female LFPRs, not for India, not internationally. Female employment outside the home in rural areas was flat between 2004 and 2017 (the period when the total rural female LFPR registered a decline), and in urban areas, there was a slight upward trend. This picture does not lend credence to the rising stigma story. National Crime Records Bureau data show a rise in assault cases (between 2011 and 2013) and rise in cruelty cases between 2004 and 2013. Rape cases increased from 2011 onwards, with slight fluctuations.

Thus, national data for India does not support the presumed correlation between crimes against women and their (in)ability to work outside the home. Macro-statistics suggest very little connection between the two, if any.

This should not be read to mean that violence against women is not a serious problem, or that it does not adversely affect their work. While there is no evidence that fear of violence keeps women from seeking jobs, for women who have jobs, sexual harassment at the workplace is very real, with devastating consequences for their work and well-being. This is a good place to note that the public focus on external violence is not only misplaced in the context of women’s employment, but the consequent push to keep women indoors completely masks the fact that the bulk of violence against women is perpetrated by those known to them — husband, partner, family, friends. Keeping women locked indoors is absolutely the wrong policy for multiple reasons; most of all it fails in its stated objective, i.e. to protect them from violence.

Data indicate that the decline in LFPRs is driven by women moving from paid to unpaid work and hence not getting counted as “workers”, even though they might continue to be involved in unpaid economic work in family enterprises (farming, livestock, kirana shops, handmade products for sale and so on). These are economic activities, and men involved in them get counted as workers, but not women. This reflects the low value placed on women’s contribution to these activities without which these would not survive. The real issue is the lack of demand for labour in occupations and activities in which women are concentrated. There is important research that shows that what we note as a decline (which is equated with the withdrawal of women from the labour force in the mainstream view) is a manifestation of the changing nature of work availability, especially for rural and less educated women. This body of research raises a question mark on the “dropping out” narrative.

Thus, the proportion of economically active women has not declined, but the number of days they work has, which shows up as a decline in LFPRs. Over the last three decades, there has been a massive decline in agricultural jobs, which has not necessarily been accompanied by an increase in rural non-farm employment or livelihood opportunities. Research shows that mechanisation has led to significantly greater decline in women’s than men’s labour in Indian farms.

There has been movement out of agriculture into informal and casual jobs, where the work is sporadic, and often less than 30 days at a stretch. The new modern-sector opportunities, especially in high value-added service sectors, mostly accrue to men. Despite all this, women who find jobs commensurate with their education levels have to battle hurdles such as lack of transportation and childcare, which could be so severe that they are unable to join that work.

Women’s education has increased significantly over the last two decades, and fertility rates have fallen — both conditions that have historically and elsewhere in the world, contributed to increasing participation of women in paid labour force. But not so in India. The Covid-19 induced economic slowdown has exacerbated the gender gap in paid work, while it has intensified the already high burden of domestic labour on women.

All surveys report a huge unmet demand for work by women. Indian women are not dropping out: They are being pushed out by the lack of demand for their labour.

Ashwini Deshpande is professor of economics and the founder director of Centre for Economic Data and Analysis, Ashoka UniversityThe views expressed are personal

Source:HindustanTimes,8/03/21

When women shape political outcomes

 There are around 35 million women voters in Bengal who will play a significant role in this election. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been in power for the last 10 years, is aware of the power of women voters.In 1973, a woman, accompanied by her husband, approached Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi, seeking to contest an assembly election. Her confidence impressed the PM and she was given a Congress ticket for an assembly constituency in a backward district of Uttar Pradesh. At that time, the candidate did not know of the difficulties that lay ahead.

While on the campaign trail, she had to ensure that family elders were with her in the jeep. She had to return home before dusk due to family compulsions. She pressed on regardless, the only saving grace being that since she was a woman, she could enter any house and reach out to women.

On election day, the women voter turnout was considerably more than witnessed in previous assembly elections. The woman candidate did not win but the participation of women ensured that the Congress did not lose its deposit in the constituency for the first time since 1952. This was a small victory of sorts for women.

A lot has changed since then. Let us look at the results of the Bihar assembly elections last year. In this politically sensitive state, male turnout was 54.45%, whereas 59.69% of women voted. Though this was about 0.79% less than in the previous election, women played a significant role in determining the political arithmetic and, therefore, government formation.

This was, among other reasons, due to the women-oriented schemes implemented by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government since it assumed power in 2014. These include the Ujjwala scheme, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which ensured a toilet in each house, bank accounts and free treatment during pregnancy. PM Narendra Modi’s image of being honest and hard-working contributed to women’s faith in these schemes. Women have proved to be loyal supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s in many elections so far.

However, the elections in West Bengal may prove an ordeal for the BJP. There are around 35 million women voters in Bengal who will play a significant role in this election. Chief minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee, who has been in power for the last 10 years, is aware of the power of women voters. The BJP won 18 seats in the 2019 general election. Banerjee gave 40% of the seats to women candidates. But since the Trinamool Congress (TMC) did not do well in that election, she launched a new wing of the party called the Bang Janani Vahini. Now, members of this women’s brigade go door-to-door to tell people about the CM’s policies as well as participate in street rallies.

The TMC has nine women Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Lok Sabha. They are given the freedom to express their opinions vocally. The speech of first-time MP Mahua Moitra on the Presidential address during the budget session of Parliament is a good example of this strategy. The TMC gave her precedence over a senior member such as Saugata Roy in such a crucial discussion. Banerjee has also encouraged women at the gram panchayat level. She has strived to strengthen the female vote by providing them maternity child care leave as well as by instituting schemes for them in educational institutions.

The TMC has consistently tried to prove that the BJP is anti-women by selectively cherry-picking and publicising alleged misogynistic statements by the BJP leaders. This explains why, while addressing a public meeting recently in Hooghly, the PM said, “Centre has provided water connections to over 3.6 crore households since the launch of the Jal Jiwan Mission, the number in Bengal has only gone up from two lakh to nine lakh. Out of 1-1.75 crore houses (in West Bengal), only nine lakh have a water pipeline. The way state government works, no wonder how many more years it’ll take to deliver water to the poor. This shows that TMC doing injustice to ‘Bengal Ki Beti’. Can they be forgiven?”

The BJP’s leaders are trying to prove, buttressed with data, that they have not lagged behind when it comes to development schemes for women. The aim is to convey to the public that women in the state are still insecure despite a woman CM in the saddle. It will be interesting to see what data set or which slogans will convince women voters. But as I see it, the efforts by both parties suggest empowerment of women which should not be looked at only in terms of electoral defeats or victories.

It is clear that since reservations given to women in panchayat elections, there has been an increase in political awareness among them. In 2019, Narendra Singh Tomar, then Union minister for rural development and panchayati raj, told the Lok Sabha that there were a total of 4.1 million public representatives in gram panchayats, of which 46% were women. But they still have to make a mark in the higher echelons of political power. Today, we have 78 women MPs, the highest-ever ratio of women in Parliament, but this is not enough.

It can only be hoped that the Bengal elections, like Bihar before, will strengthen political empowerment among women voters.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan

Source: Hindustan Times, 1/03/21

One cannot be a feminist in India if you are not fighting the Manusmriti

 

The movement against ‘Manusmriti’ must be robustly feminist and unconditionally assert women’s autonomy.

In a webinar on “Periyar and feminism”, Thol. Thirumavalavan, president of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), quoted Periyar on the Manusmriti, to say that the “Manu Dharma” demeans women, holding them to be prostitutes by nature. In her newfound avatar as a BJP acolyte, actor Khushbu Sundar claimed Thirumavalavan’s words insulted women. On cue, a case was filed against the VCK leader in Chennai.

It is the Manusmriti that insults women: Thirumavalavan merely quoted from it. What Khushbu and her party know, but cannot admit, is that they are outraged on behalf of the Manusmriti and not on behalf of women. That is why Khushbu claims that the Manusmriti has “not a single word that demeans women.”

At public functions in India, it is common to hear people sententiously cite the Manusmriti to say, “The deities delight in places where women are revered, but where women are not revered all rites are fruitless” (The Laws of Manu, 3:58, Doniger and Smith, Penguin Books, 1991). The same Manusmriti says, “It is the very nature of women to corrupt men here on earth; for that reason, circumspect men do not get careless and wanton among wanton women.” The idea of women as sexual tempters, corrupters or gateways to hell is not unique to Manu. The Christian, Islamic and Buddhist texts also warn against women, portraying them as sexually promiscuous, secretive, sly and out to entrap men.

Saying that the Manusmriti “treats women as prostitutes” is misleading. Such a description of the Manusmriti implies that the harm it causes is because it refers to women as sexually “loose” and, thus, insults women. But, in fact, the harm of the Manusmriti lies in its prescriptions of tight control of women’s autonomy. Manu says, “A girl, a young woman, or even an old woman should not do anything independently, even in (her own) house. In childhood a woman should be under her father’s control, in youth under her husband’s, and when her husband is dead, under her sons.”

Our critique of the Manusmriti should take care to challenge rather than reinforce the notion that the worst thing one can say of a woman is that she is sexually “loose” or a “prostitute”. It is important to recognise that the harm of the Manusmriti lies, not in the fact that it asks us to treat women as “prostitutes”, but that it asks us to treat women as daughters, wives, mothers who must be tightly controlled by fathers, husbands, sons. In fact, Manu encourages us to see this control as “reverence” and “protection” rather than as repression and oppression.

This obsessive control over women is needed to prevent a breakdown of caste hierarchies and caste apartheid. The Manusmriti lays down the law that a woman who makes love to a man of a higher caste incurs no punishment; a woman who makes love to a man of a “lower” caste than hers must be isolated and kept in confinement. If a man from a subordinate caste makes love to a woman of the highest caste, he must be put to death.

But, some ask, does anyone really read the Manusmriti in India, let alone obey it? The facts show that the spirit of Manu’s laws continue to inform and shape modern society, as well as modern politics in India. The National Family Health survey 2015–16 (NFHS-4) found that just 41 per cent of Indian women aged between 15 and 49 are allowed to go alone to the market, to the health centre, and outside the community (NFHS-4, table 15.13). Startlingly, 40 per cent of “what is classified as rape …is actually parental criminalisation of consensual sexual relationships, often when it comes to inter-caste and inter-religious couples” (Rukmini S., ‘The many shades of rape cases in Delhi’, The Hindu, July 29, 2014.)

In caste lies the key to understanding India’s obsession with controlling and curbing women’s autonomy — and in the Manusmriti lies the key to understanding the codes of caste and gender that are hardwired into our societies and selves. In every household where women are surveilled, their movements restricted; in every opposition to inter-caste, inter-faith marriage; in every attack on Dalits’ villages after a Dalit man has married a non-Dalit woman, in the Sangh’s campaign to brand love between Hindu women and Muslim men as “love jihad” — it is the Manusmriti that you see in action.

Today, Khushbu Sundar on behalf of the BJP is leading the pack in attacking Thirumavalavan for his remarks on the Manusmriti, which they construe as an insult to Indian womanhood. In 2005, Khushbu herself had been at the receiving end of similar patriarchal moral outrage. She had remarked that pre-marital sex was cool as long as it was safe sex — for this, 22 cases were filed against her accusing her of “defaming Tamil womanhood and chastity”. The attack on Khushbu was led by the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a party now known for its violent campaign against marriages between Dalit men and women of intermediate castes. And at the time, Thol. Thirumavalavan and his organisation, too, had joined the fray, with Thirumavalavan saying that her remarks were “against public order”. It would strengthen the movement against the Manusmriti today, if he were to acknowledge how his 2005 remarks reinforced the same Brahminical patriarchal notions of female purity and chastity that he, and we, are fighting today.

One cannot be a feminist in India if you are not fighting the Manusmriti — and one cannot fight the Manusmriti without being robustly feminist, and asserting women’s unconditional autonomy.

This article first appeared in the print edition on October 27, 2020 under the title “Book of Unfreedom”. The writer is secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association and politburo member, CPI(ML)

Source: Indian Express, 27/10/20