Droit : l'obligation

The status of women in India

Introduction

India is still a country suffering from a female inferiority, despite all the women who had accessed to power. Besides the progressive modernity, discrimination against women seems growing. We’ll study the status of women in India through several factors. First, we will examine how the preference for boys’ births sculpts the Indian demography and leads to a female deficit. We will then discuss the issue of women through education, and therefore their power in the labor market, considering the recent emancipation of young urban graduating female students, who are one of the drivers of the ongoing social change.

1. Medical factor

The birth of a boy remains a pride in Asia, and is especially favored in India, where boys are meant to keep their father’s name, inherit the family patrimony and perform some Hindu ceremonies, which girls are not allowed to perform. Hence, having a girl has been for centuries judged less useful and less honorable. A last factor explains the fact that they are a lot less desired: parents are forced to give an expensive dowry to the groom’s family.

This depreciation of girls in their families resulted of their elimination after birth, either by infanticide, or by willful neglects in terms of care and food. The British people had already noticed an abnormal number of boys compared to the girls and had banned infanticide in 1870. However, it carried on to a large extent thereafter.

With the legalization of abortion in 1971 and the advent of prenatal screening techniques such as the ultrasound in 1979, which detects the sex of fetuses, arrived a massive use of abortions of female fetuses. Between 1980 and 1990, private clinics offered more and more ultrasound machines. Advertising started proclaiming such things as « Spend 5,000 rupees now and save 500,000 rupees later » (understood if you're expecting a girl, abort now so you don't pay dowry later). Selective abortion was banned in 1994 but remains largely flouted.

While the contribution of medical techniques has allowed the elimination of girls to change their nature from postnatal to prenatal, the 20th century has seen India's population increased fivefold overall, but the number of men also increased tenfold.

1. Educational factor

The low social position of girls in the family environment has always been a hindrance to their schooling. Educating them is traditionally considered an unnecessary expense, since they move into another family as soon as they get married. In the total population, the rate of literate women remains lower than men. However, gender differences in literacy have narrowed since Independence and girls' enrolment has steadily increased, thanks in part to public incitements such as scholarships and school meals. Girls now make up 48% of the school registrations.

Because many of them become wives very early, the rate of the female professional activity is extremely low: only 29% of the women work. One reason of this low rate is a conservatism, still very present in the middle-class families. Their lack of qualification doesn’t offer them many opportunities in the labor market as well.

Though India's new economy is proving to be an opportunity for young Indian graduates.  They participate, with men, in the development of new urban habits: fashion, outings and leisure. At the same time, within this urban youth, out-of-marriage relationships and free-union began to emerge, and traditional criteria for marriage have become more relaxed, with more freedom in the choice of spouse. This empowerment path currently affects only a small minority of Indian women, but it is a decisive factor in evolution, because by giving greater visibility to the independence of young workers, it changes the whole cultural representations.

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