Far from equal

 The SDG Gender Index, published by Equal Measures 2030, a coalition of NGOs, provides a comprehensive evaluation of the global progress toward achieving gender equality as outlined in the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, the findings of the 2024 report deliver a stark message: not a single country is on track to meet gender equality by 2030.

One of the most alarming findings of the report is that, at the current pace, gender equality will not be achieved globally until another century. This prediction reflects deep structural issues in the way gender equality is pursued globally, compounded by intersecting crises such as economic inequality, the rise of anti-democratic movements, and post-pandemic recovery challenges.

Between 2019 and 2022, nearly 40% of the countries included in the SDG Gender Index either stagnated or saw a decline in gender equality progress. This decline affects over one billion women and girls globally. The Index finds that 74% of the SDG targets cannot be achieved without addressing these gender gaps.

Economic inequality continues to play a significant role in obstructing gender equality. From 2019 to 2022, income inequality either stagnated or worsened in three-quarters of the countries analysed; the 10 countries where the score worsened most were Malta, the Netherlands, Estonia, Mali, Finland, Lithuania, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, and Colombia. The rise in governments’ debt burdens has been linked to diminishing public funds available for gender-responsive budgets and social infrastructure. Gender equality programmes suffer consequently, making it difficult to achieve social transformation.

Political and societal polarisation, fuelled by the rise of right-wing, nationalist, and populist governments, are exacerbating the rollback of gender equality. The report highlights a troubling increase in anti-feminist rhetoric, which directly impacts policies and funding for women’s rights, health, education, and public participation. This backlash is not limited to policy but is reflected in the fracturing of societal values. Survey data from countries such as Germany, South Korea, and the United States of America show that young men are significantly less supportive of gender equality than their female counterparts.

Moreover, women’s right to political participation has seen a consistent decline across the globe with the sharpest setbacks occurring in Asia and the Pacific, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. This shrinking space for women’s voices in both private and public spheres raises concerns about the future of gender-inclusive democracies and the capacity to advocate for sustainable changes.

The next six years leading up to the 2030 Agenda are fraught with challenges that threaten to erase the fragile gains in gender equality. The 2024 SDG Gender Index stresses the need for immediate investment in gender-responsive policies, progressive taxation, and public services. However, with growing government debt and increasing economic inequality, the likelihood of mobilising sufficient public funds for gender programmes appears grim.

Global cooperation and solidarity are more necessary than ever to address these challenges. The report calls for fairer trade and tax rules as well as increased international aid and grants to support countries in achieving gender equality. These efforts must be coupled with systemic reforms that challenge the political and economic structures that perpetuate inequality.

The 2024 SDG Gender Index offers a sobering look at global progress toward gender equality. With less than six years remaining before the 2030 Agenda deadline, it is clear that the world is far from achieving its promise of gender equality. Without renewed commitment and global solidarity, gender equality will remain a distant goal. The SDG Gender Index serves not only as a diagnostic tool but is also a rallying cry for the international community to prioritise and protect gender equality.

Anjali Chauhan is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi

Source: The Telegraph India, 26/11/24

Express View on women outnumbering men in medicine: Whole numbers, dark truths

 

As more women enter medicine, it is time to iron out systemic inadequacies, patriarchal mindsets.

One of the lacunae in the documentation of India’s medical history has been the fact that it covers little of the lives and struggles of women doctors. The journeys of Anandi Bai Joshi, Kadambini Ganguly or Haimabati Sen — some of India’s first female doctors — into popular consciousness might have been impeded by the fact that there were so few women who studied medicine in the late 19th-early 20th century that their stories got archived as exceptions. In the last decade though, this has shown a happy remedial tendency. Data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) shows an upward graph in the enrollment of women in medicine. For every 100 men, there were 100 women enrolled in medical colleges in 2020-21. This was an increase from 88 in 2011-12 per 100 men to 110 in 2019-20, with a slight dip during the pandemic. There have been other significant — and welcome — departures. More women are opting for what have, for long, been male bastions — cardiology, oncology, neurology.

This upsurge is a welcome alignment of aspiration and opportunity and the work of generations of attitudinal shift. Women are no longer willing to be thwarted by societal expectations of marriage and motherhood or the premium placed on care work at home, notwithstanding their professional qualifications. The AISHE data bears this out. From just seven women against 312 men in 2012-13 in cardiology, the number rose to 78 against 220 men in 2020-21. In oncology, there were just 29 women against 95 men in 2012-13, but in 2020-21, the figures stood at 116 women against 123 men. In neurology in 2012-13, there were nine women against 118 men, but in 2020-21, this grew to 78 women against 173 men.

However, despite the projection that almost half of Indian surgeons in the coming decade will be female, and as the R G Kar rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata has shown yet again, the system remains unprepared to receive women in its fold. Sexism in the classroom and the workplace, absence of basic facilities such as separate changing rooms and washrooms, inadequate security arrangements and little protection against violences large and small are all functions of a masculine imagination of the workplace. As more women enter medicine, this is an opportune moment to fix all that is broken. It could begin with more women in leadership roles who realise that it is not the late-night shifts that are the problem but the fact that women need to be worried about them in the first place.

Source: Indian Express, 17/09/24

India Ranks 129th on Global Gender Gap Index

 India is ranked 129th out of 146 countries in the 2024 Global Gender Gap Index. This is the same spot it has held in the bottom 20 for the past few years. This shows that fixing the gender gap has been hard for a long time in many areas, even though there has been some progress in some areas. Iceland retained its top position in the rankings list.

About the Global Gender Gap Index

The Global Gender Gap Index, launched in 2006, examines gender equality in economic participation and opportunity,  education, health and survival, and political empowerment. The index ratings emphasize gender inequality rather than women’s performance, ranging from 0 (no parity) to 1 (complete parity).

Analysis of India’s Sub-Indices Performance

• Economic participation: India’s 39.8% score ranks 142nd, indicating a persistent gender gap in the working and managerial ranks, despite a little increase from previous years.
•  Educational Attainment: India ranks 112th in  education with a 96.4% gender gap closed. This shows  educational equality is better but remains below global levels.
• Health and Survival: India ranks 142nd with 0.951, suggesting significant gender health disparities.
• Political Empowerment: India ranks 65th in political inclusion, bridging the gender gap with 25.1%.

Regional Comparison

In South Asia, India ranks fifth out of seven countries, while Bangladesh leads globally at 99th. India is generally underperforming on gender equity, especially compared to its neighbors. Discrimination based on gender costs the world’s economy a lot—up to $12 trillion a year. Improving equality between men and women could greatly increase GDP growth rates. This shows how important it is to include equality between men and women in economic policymaking.

The Great Gender Divide: Globally, young women are becoming more liberal than men, but what about India?

 

There is evidence globally of a growing gender divide on ideological lines. In the past decade, young women are becoming more liberal. What about India?Not so long ago, we’d look at generations as a whole. Millennials think this about that, or this is what Gen Z believes. Now it turns out that around the world, men and women under the age of 30 have increasingly divergent views. Women have become more liberal in the past decade; men of the same age, more conservative. “Gen Z is two generations, not one,” writes John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times [gift link]. “In countries on every continent, an ideological gap has opened up between young men and women.” American women have become more liberal since the 1990s, finds a new Gallup poll and the shift is more evident among young women and senior women—up by 11 points.

When it comes to comparisons with men, women aged 18-30 are 30 percentage points more liberal than men of the same age.

There’s a similar gap to be found in Germany. In the UK, the gap is around 25 percentage points.

Using data from the Gallup poll, analysis of general social surveys of Korea and the British Election Study, FT reports even starker divisions outside the west – in China, for instance and South Korea.

“As long as Korean men continue to dominate management and socialise with other men, they are immersed in cultures of self-righteous sexism,” writes Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford who is working on her book, The Great Gender Divergence. South Korean women, on the other hand, are increasingly feminist. “Inspired and emboldened, they have shared stories of abuse and publicly supported each other.”

The India story

“The first signs of a challenge to the status quo are now visible,” write Rahul Verma and Ankita Barthwal of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in this 2020 article published in Mint, Is India on the Cusp of a Gender Revolution? The change is being driven largely by young, educated women. Looking the 2020 You-Guv-Mint-CPR Millennial survey, Verma and Barthwal examine gender preferences across marriage, parenting, professional space, friendship and politics.

The similarities in career aspiration, they say, are “driven at least in part by the greater equality of opportunities between men and women.” It signals the “weakening of gendered norms in dictating career choices of women.” For instance, when it comes to dream careers, men and women with the same educational qualifications have strikingly similar aspirations.

But differences are emerging as well.

For instance, an equal number of men and women want to get married, but more women than men—70% to 62% of the 10,005 respondents across 184 towns and cities interviewed online--said they’d prefer love marriages. Women also want to marry later; 19% said after the age of 31, only 14% of men said they’d rather marry after that age. Women also want fewer children than men: 65% of men wanted two children, among women, 58%.In terms of friendships, it’s women who are more likely than men to have friends outside of identity circles like caste, religion or gender. Just 13% of women said they had no friends outside their caste (20% for men); 15% of women said they had no friends outside their religion (21% for men), and 18% had no friends outside their gender (25% for men). This actually is remarkable when you consider the restrictions and policing of women’s mobility and movements.

It’s too early yet to see a trend, cautions Verma. “We might have green shoots but I’m not yet seeing a trend,” he said. “Certainly, young women are becoming more politically inclined but women are still behind on a lot of parameters.” Two possible reasons are being offered for this gendered divergence. The first is the impact and fallout of the #MeToo movement. As women came forward to share their experiences of workplace sexual harassment, they found an online movement that gave them a democratic, open space. It helped create virtual networks around the world. And it primed women to speak up and create resistance on a range of issues. In Iran, for instance, the movement against enforced head scarves. But the movement also created a solidarity of women who found they could connect very quickly around the world and organise at least virtual sisterhood networks.

The second could be the roll back of hard-won rights with the most obvious being the back pedalling in the US in June 2022 on Roe v Wade, which ended the Constitutional right to abortion.

But, for me, there’s a third crucial reason. When it comes to challenging the status quo of patriarchal societies, where men are literally served hand and foot by an army of mothers, sisters, wives and daughters, those to gain the most are women. Men have everything to lose and women have everything to gain.

“There is a huge rise in aspiration among young women,” says Shrayana Bhattacharya, the author of Desperately Seeking Shahrukh Khan. But, “young men are not being able to adapt to these new aspiration. They are not being raised to cope with this new generation of aspirational women.”

So, while we might not yet be at a Venus/Mars divide, women are increasingly questioning the roles into which they have been slotted. Change is coming.

The following article is an excerpt from Namita Bhandare’s Mind the Gap. Read the rest of the newsletter here

Source: Hindustan Times, 18/02/24

Does the Indian judiciary have a ‘patriarchy problem’?

 

As Justice Fathima Beevi, the first woman Supreme Court justice in India, passes away, a look at the representation of women in the Indian judiciary.

Justice Fathima Beevi, the first Indian woman to become a Supreme Court judge, died on Thursday at the age of 96 in Kollam, Kerala. With her appointment to the SC in 1989, Justice Beevi became the first Muslim woman judge of the Supreme Court, as well as the first woman Supreme Court Justice in Asia.

Even as she acknowledged that the judiciary is a patriarchal institution, Justice Beevi also famously said that she has “opened the door” for women with her appointment.

What is the representation of women in India’s Supreme Court?

Since 1989, only 10 women have made it to the Supreme Court. Currently, there are only three female judges of the 33 Supreme Court judges – Justices Hima Kohli; Bela Trivedi; and BV Nagarathna.While Justice Nagarathna is in line to become the first-ever female Chief Justice of India on September 25th, 2027, her tenure will be only 36 days.However, the appointment of Justices Kohli, Nagarathna, and Trivedi to the top court in 2021 created history, as this marked the first time that so many females were appointed to the SC in one go. Additionally, this was significant as for the first time we had four female judges in the SC at once, the highest number so far.

Apart from this, there have been only eight other female judges in the history of India’s apex court. They include Justices Sujata Manohar, Ruma Pal, Gyan Sudha Misra, Ranjana Desai, R. Banumathi, Indu Malhotra, and Indira Banerjee and Fathima Beevi.

This means that among the total 268 judges in the Supreme Court’s history, only 11 have been women. In other words, only 4.1% of all Supreme Court judges have been women, while the remaining 96% are men.

Is the situation in High Courts any better?

Presently, India has 25 high courts with a total sanctioned strength of 1,114 judges. However, according to the Department of Justice’s website, only 782 judges are working while the remaining 332 judges’ posts are vacant. Among these, only 107 judges, or 13% of all HC judges, are female.

Currently, none of the country’s 25 HCs have a female chief justice, barring the Gujarat High Court, where the collegium appointed Justice Sunita Agarwal in July this year because there weren’t any women HC CJs in the country.

Responding to a question by Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi on the representation of weaker sections among high court judges, Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said in July that appointments to the higher judiciary are made under Articles 124, 217, and 224 of the Constitution, which don’t provide reservation “for any caste or class of persons.”

Despite this, the Centre requested that HC CJs duly consider suitable candidates who are women, minorities, scheduled castes, or tribes, among others, while sending proposals for appointing judges, to “ensure social diversity” in the process, Meghwal said.

Before this, in February, while responding to a question by Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha on the strength of female judges and lawyers in the high courts and the Supreme Court, the then Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju revealed, “As on 31.01.2023, in the High Courts, against the sanctioned strength of 1108 Judges 775 Judges are working out of which 106 are women Judges and 669 are male Judges. The percentage of women Judges is 9.5% of the total strength and 13.6% of the working strength of High Court Judges. At present no women Chief Justice is working in any High Court of the country.”

Speaking of the subordinate judiciary, a 2018 study by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy found that while representation of women in the lower judiciary is relatively higher at 27%, it hit a glass ceiling in higher appointments — as district judges and subsequently at the high court level.

What is the situation for the lower judiciary?

In its 2018 study on the representation of women in the lower judiciary, Vidhi found that there were 15,806 judges in the lower judiciary between March and July 2017.

The report found that only in three of the smallest states — Goa, Meghalaya, and Sikkim, with a collective total of a mere 103 judges — did the percentage of women judges cross 60%. Barring Telangana and Puducherry, the percentage of women judges remained below 40% for all other states, regardless of geography, cultural considerations, or other differences.

Though there is no reservation for women in the higher judiciary, several states have provided quotas for women in the lower judiciary, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttarakhand, which provide between 30% and 35% of the total seats for which recruitment is done through direct appointment.

More recently, another study titled the India Justice Report (IJR) 2022 revealed that “only 13% of High Court judges and 35% of Subordinate Court judges are women.” At the level of district courts, Goa had the highest, or 70%, of women judges, while Meghalaya (62.7%), Telangana (52.8%), and Sikkim (52.4%) came close behind, the report said 

So why is there a lack of Indian women’s representation in the judiciary?

Reasons for the lack of female representation in the judiciary include an entrenched “old boys’ club mentality”, which makes it harder for women to lobby for judicial posts.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2017, senior advocate Indira Jaising pointed out the small courtesies offered by men to other men, such as the chance to have their cases heard first, the friendly body language of male judges when speaking to male lawyers and said, “It gets to be depressing not to have a community to bond with. [Women] are increasing now, but they’re also not very bonded, they are isolated.”

Besides this, factors like sexual harassment, clients not trusting women advocates with high-stake cases and lack of supportive infrastructure, from toilets to maternity leave also contribute to higher attrition rates of women in judiciary and litigation as well.

The lower judiciary is better than the High Court and Supreme Court. That’s perhaps because entry to the lower judiciary is through an examination, while the High Court and Supreme Court are decided by the collegium which works through informal channels of picking candidates.

In April 2021, while hearing an application filed by the Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association for intervention in the case ‘M/s PLR Projects Pvt Ltd v Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd’, where the issue of unfilled vacancies of HC judges was being considered, former CJI SA Bobde underscored that appointments are not an institutional issue but a matter of finding the right woman.

“Chief Justices of high courts have stated that many women advocates, when invited to become judges, declined the offer citing domestic responsibilities about children studying in Class 12 etc,” Bobde said.

Several female members of the bar responded, including Bombay-based advocate Veena Gowda, who said, “There are many men who refuse judgeship because they have a successful practice and do not want to take a cut in their earnings. But has that stopped the collegium from seeking more men and making them judges?”

Written by Khadija Khan

Source: Indian Express, 26/11/23

The Gender Snapshot 2023 Report

 he United Nations has released a report stating that the goal of achieving gender equality by 2030, as set by the U.N., is unlikely to be realized due to deeply ingrained biases against women in various sectors such as health, education, employment, and politics. The report, titled “The Gender Snapshot 2023,” highlights that active resistance to gender equality and chronic underinvestment are key factors slowing progress and even leading to reversals in some cases.

Issues like unequal access to sexual and reproductive health, political underrepresentation, economic disparities, and a lack of legal protection contribute to this challenge. The report also calls attention to setbacks for women and girls in conflict-affected regions and the adverse impact of climate change.

What is the status of poverty among women according to the report?

The report notes that one in every ten women today, or 10.3%, lives in extreme poverty, defined as having less than $2.15 a day. If current trends continue, it predicts that 8% of the world’s female population will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030, with a significant proportion in Sub-Saharan Africa.

How does the report assess the status of education for girls and young women globally?

While access to education is increasing for both boys and girls, the report reveals that millions of girls never enter a classroom or complete their education, especially in conflict-affected areas. It estimates that up to 129 million girls and young women may be out of school globally in 2023, with an estimated 110 million still out of school in 2030 if current trends persist.

What financial measures does the report suggest are needed to achieve gender equality by 2030?

The report estimates that $6.4 trillion per year is required across 48 developing countries to achieve gender equality in various key areas by 2030. It calls for increased funding for programs promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. The report warns of an annual shortfall of $360 billion if current government expenditures continue on their current trajectory, and it appeals for additional funding to bridge this gap.

Gaping gap: Editorial on pay gap between men and women

 Psychological stress is also the result of embedded discrimination

An important sign of gender inequality across the world is the pay gap between men and women doing the same job and with the same level of productivity. Globally, women earn only 77 cents on an average for every dollar earned by a man. This gap is present in India too, and may be worsening over time. Between April and June 2022, the female wage rate ranged across states from just over 50% to 93.7% in rural India, and from just under 50% to 100.8% in cities. The gap in rural areas has worsened over the last decade in most states. The urban gap has, however, diminished. The data have been released by the National Statistical Office in the report, Women and Men in India 2022. In some states where the male wage is among the highest in India, the gender gap is also the widest. The data do not reveal any obvious patterns. According to the report, in the states of West Bengal, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, the rural wage gap has increased by more than 10% between 2011-12 to 2022. These three states have different patterns of development, ranging from very rapid to quite slow. The figures are perhaps indicative of the deep-rooted patriarchal belief that women are less productive and more likely to leave the labour force or be absent.

The pay gap is not only unfair in terms of the ethics of equal pay for equal work but it also has long-term consequences for the economic development of a nation. The lifetime earnings of women turn out to be less compared to men. Women often end up in poverty despite having similar wage employment. Poverty is disempowering. Thus, the ability of a woman to have an effective influence over decisions affecting her own life, such as education, health, personal expenses and childcare, is likely to be poor. This engenders low self-esteem and self-worth, reinforcing beliefs of gender inequality. Psychological stress is also the result of embedded discrimination. In some situations where women may have other job opportunities available, they may not work for the same employer for long. This creates a self-fulfilling condition of lower productivity for women. This is caused by the fact that they are either constantly on the lookout for higher-paying jobs or for matrimonial alliances to augment their access to a higher family income. Getting rid of the wage gap and other forms of discrimination is not too difficult, provided there is adequate political will among those who govern.

Source: Telegraph, 27/03/23

Ripple effect: Editorial on study claiming gender parity helps prolong life expectancies

 Returning education to girls and boys, along with other incentives for closing the gender gap, should be prioritised on a war footing.

Meeting social welfare goals — gender equality, justice, and empowerment — can, at times, yield unexpected benefits. A new global study published in the journal, PLOS Global Public Health, bears evidence of this. The said research has hypothesised that gender parity can prolong life expectancies of both men and women. While the correlations between gender equality and economic and health benefits are well established, the relationship between gender equality and life expectancy has not been explored extensively; this makes the findings of the report interesting. This first-of-its-kind research used a modified global gender gap index developed by the World Economic Forum and examined data in four spheres — economic opportunity, education, health and political representation — across 156 countries from 2010 to 2021. Excluding the health parameter, it was found that a 10% rise in mGGGI resulted in an increase of 4.3 months in women’s life expectancy; the figure for men is 3.5 months for the year, 2021. This indicates that even though the gender gap in life expectancy widens initially, the ripple effect of a — utopian? — gender-equal society would ultimately benefit men’s longevity. The study offers some important deductions. It challenges, indeed dismantles, the myth of gender parity being conducive to women’s welfare only. It also reinforces the importance of a gender-equal world at a time when disparities between the sexes have been amplified by the pandemic.

António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, has rued that the decades of advances made in gender equality are being wound back at an alarming rate and that it would take another 300 years to close the global gender gap if the current — regressive — trends continue unchecked. Several global surveys have also validated Mr Guterres’ concern and the situation in India is no better. According to the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022, India stands at 135 out of 146 countries. The need of the hour is to arrest the decelerating momentum. Several studies have shown that developing gender sensitivity early in life can positively impact equality. Interestingly, the PLOS study too emphasises educational equality. Dishearteningly, the recent All India Survey of Higher Education report has shown that the Covid-19 pandemic has widened the gender gap in higher education. Returning education to girls and boys, along with other incentives for closing the gender gap, should be prioritised on a war footing.

Source: Telegraph India, 16/03/23

Gender equitable world by 2030 is a distant dream

 n 1936, Reza Shah Pehlavi, stopped women from wearing the hijab which many believe ‘more to be in tune with the prevalent tradition and culture of the majority of women than on any devout religious beliefs’

I ran has erupted into a frenzy of protests once again with the rallying cries of ‘Women’, ‘Life, ‘Liberty’, in the aftermath of the custodial death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-yearold Kurdish-Iranian woman, arrested by the Iranian morality police for violations of the ‘hijab code’.

 In 1983, Ayatollah Khomeini introduced mandatory hijab wearing for women and girls above the age of nine in public places. Over the years, Iranian women underwent several restrictions, the latest being the government decree this year barring women’s entry into government offices, banks and in public transport without a complete hijab. 

While the headquarters of the office for the promotion of virtues and prevention of vices, with a renewed vigour embarked on facial recognition technology for tracking offenders, the ‘Morality Police’ took up increased patrolling, arrests and detentions. Under the Islamic Constitution, women in Iran are subjected to a slew of discriminatory civil and criminal laws which segregate them from men, punish them disproportionately, and deprive them of equal rights in personal freedom and family laws.

. Domestic violence is not a crime in Iran, while marital rape is legal. In most of the cases, victims of non-marital rapes are discouraged from reporting, and even if they venture to do so, they are often slapped with charges like adultery, which is punishable with execution. A US-based Iranian academic remarked that in ‘Iranian politics women’s body played out differently at different times’. 

In 1936, Reza Shah Pehlavi, stopped women from wearing the hijab which many believe ‘more to be in tune with the prevalent tradition and culture of the majority of women than on any devout religious beliefs’, while the religious establishment considered it as a ‘blow to its values and power’. With the establishment of an Islamic regime, women’s veil was reimposed as a part of ‘Islamic identity’.

 However, many religious scholars and theologists opined that Muslim religious writings are not entirely clear on whether women should veil, some others are of the view that even if it is mentioned in the Quran, it is more for separation and protection of women’s modesty. Nevertheless, a 2020 survey in Iran disclosed that 58 per cent of the surveyed informed that they don’t believe in the hijab altogether, around 72 per cent opposed the compulsory hijab, while 15 per cent insist on legal obligation to wear the hijab in public. 

“The present generation youth living in a securitised State with a crumbling economy, isolated from the rest of the world, has had enough of it,” commented an Iranian affairs expert. Many feel that the large number of killings and arrests signifies that the ongoing demonstrations, in which, men have also joined, are now for a broader battle for serious political changes, and not limited to fighting against the ‘gender apartheid’. 

Are such flagrant violations of women’s bodily rights restricted to Iran alone? No, they are not. In postRoe America, women are also up in arms with slogans like ‘My body, my choice’, ‘Bans off our bodies’ et al. Many legal analysts commented that the US government regulates women more than guns, as the SC while striking down the 100-year-old New York gun restrictions, immediately after the Roe decisions, interdicted the States from legislating their own gun laws, whereas in overturning Roe, it allowed States to enact abortion restrictions. Abortion care is now unavailable in 14 States.

Further, states like Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, and South Dakota are coming up with stricter abortion bans. Notwithstanding, pro-life conservatives are not happy with the enforcement of the restrictions, and are demanding more digital surveillance. Texas is framing a law that would require internet providers to block all abortion pill websites. Moreover, some research studies reported about “gross gender bias in medicine……..and that reproductive health conditions are commonly ignored.” Nevertheless, this year’s midterm elections showed some pro-choice gains, and Democrats could score critical wins in Michigan, California, Pennsylvania and also in red States like Kentucky and Montana.

While President Biden has been limited in his ability to protect abortion access, women in the oldest democracy await the outcome of the 2024 Presidential elections, critical for restoration of universal abortion care. Looking at India, about 30 per cent of women, 31.6 per cent urban and 24.2 per cent rural, in the world’s largest democracy, reportedly, have been victims of physical, emotional or sexual abuse within the four walls of their homes, mostly by their intimate partners, and a large number of such cases (77 per cent) remain unreported, mainly, for fear of victimblaming (NFHS-5).

 India is not among the fifty countries which have outlawed marital rape. In 21st century India, internalised patriarchy, conservative societal norms and deeply ingrained gender favouritism still condition women’s behaviour like what to wear, where to go or whom to marry, etc. No wonder that an actress’s outfit has recently created a political storm, while the growing vigilantism against ‘love jihad’ reflects a new trend in ‘gender governance’. 

The nations of the world under the aegis of the United Nations pledged to turn the world genderequitable by 2030′. Nevertheless, this year’s Global Goalkeepers report, belied any such hopes, and that it is not likely to be reached until at least 2108. As many women’s rights protagonists contend, it is discriminatory social norms that perpetuate systemic gender imbalance. Global efforts must counter such regressive trends, both in policy framework and implementation process, by involving multiple actors from community leaders and civil society to governments.

ARCHANA DATTA

Source: The Statesman, 8/01/23