History proves that women have been ill-treated for centuries. From Draupadi vastraharan to sati practice to female foeticide. Women still have to go through horrendous crimes like eve-teasing, rapes, acid attacks, dowry system, etc.
Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong, it’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.
G.D. Anderson
Women go through a lot of difficulties every day and most of them are due to the mentality of people. There’s always constant underestimation and taunting. Women are sick of going through them every day.
So here are a few things you can do to make a women’s life better.
1. Educate Women
According to a survey conducted by the National Statistical Office in 2021, the literacy rate of women is 65.46% compared to the literacy rate of men is 82.14%. This means that gap between them is 16.68%. Another alarming number is the amount of girls who drop out of school after class 11, which is 57%. This is according to the “Children in India 2018” report released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme implementation.
Sharada Patel, a former Sarpanch of a village in Gujarat, said, “Not many parents prefer to send their girls to cities for higher education because they fear that the girl may elope with a youth from another caste or marry him”. This is the mindset of most people and this is also one of the reasons those 57% of girls don’t go ahead with higher education.
Education is a basic right. Educating women along with men will promote the idea of equality and democracy. This also makes them independent and builds their confidence. A girl’s education is a lifeline to development.
Government can start something like Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan to encourage families to send their daughter for higher education where the government can give the girl’s family a certain amount to the family after a girl completes her 12th class or higher university level education. The government does have schemes to ensure education of girl child however; these schemes are not available in every part of the country and people are not aware about them too.
2. Teach Women Job Skills
In a country like India where mothers and other relatives teach their daughters skills like cooking and other life skills, those same mothers never teach them to their sons. Since these are “life skills”, these should be taught to everyone irrespective of their gender. This is a classic example of patriarchy in our country.
Family members teach their daughters skills like cooking and other required skills to keep her ‘future in-laws’ happy but they rarely support and encourage their daughters to learn about job skills.
In India, rural population is more than urban population. If we taught our daughters about job skills, they would start to think of themselves on the road to lead an independent life. For example, in almost every company you will find more men compared to women.
Teaching women job skills like weaving, beekeeping, sewing, embroidery and technical skills will lead to them being financially independent. One in five women who are taught these skills start their own income-generating business.
3. Be Self-Reliant
Our country became independent in 1947 but it is still not possible to think that a woman can go anywhere alone at night because of all the horrible cases of rape and molestation.
India was named as the “Most dangerous country for Women” in 2018. We can’t bring sudden change in the country by changing the mindset of millions of people in a short amount of time. But what we can do is to make sure that every woman knows self defense.
Self-defense has become increasingly popular among women. It is really important to know how to stand up for yourself in difficult situations. Women should learn to be their own knight in shining armor. So if you are a parent and you are reading this article, then it is your responsibility to teach your child self defense.
4. Compliment Women on Things Other than Their Body
Often women are complimented on their looks and body. But as much as they like that, they love to hear compliments about their skills, personality etc. Compliments like “I like how passionate you are when you talk about this topic” go a long way.
So the next time you meet your colleague who is a girl, try complimenting her on her skills. This will help her be more confident in her professional life.
5. No Means No
Consent has always meant and will always mean the same thing: permission, approval, agreement.
It’s simple: YES or NO.
Yes means to agree and no means to disagree. You will be surprised at how many times rapists argued that “they were unsure” of what the victim meant when they said “no”.
No is not just word but it is an entire sentence. No means no be it from a girl who is your acquaintance, friend, girlfriend, a sex worker, or your own wife. No means no.
These are the lines from the Pink (2016) Movie.
If you haven’t watched the movie, I highly recommend you to watch it!
People need to stop when a sex worker says “NO” because she doesn’t want it. The same goes with a wife.
Many people and husbands think that they have a license for sexual intercourse by force with his wife but it is Marital rape. And it’s a shame that Marital rape is still legal in India.
6. Gender Socialization
Unfortunately gender socialization begins at birth. This is acting out of gender norms. Intentionally or unintentionally this affects people from their childhood.
Things like dressing girls and boys in pink and blue respectively, giving boys “masculine” toys and giving girls “feminine” toys to play with. We need to stop using these gender norms around children as they are the future of the world.
7. Stop using a Girl as an insult
“Don’t cry like a girl“, “Stop running like a girl”
Unfortunately, we’ve all heard these types of comments at some point in our lives. Since when did being a girl become an insult?
By using such phrases around children, we unknowingly tell them that reinforcing cultural gender stereotypes is okay and that will not be tolerated.
8. Encourage Women to Take “Male-Dominated” Roles
According to a research, only 7.2% of women work full-time in male-dominated occupations in 2018.
If the percentage of women in male-dominated occupations is so low, gender equality in employment is a distant dream for women. Women face a lot of challenges like: higher stress, societal expectations about their leadership abilities and sexual harassment.
9. Choosing Women in Global Leadership Roles
Nowadays, most of the high-profile job titles are taken up by men. For instance, the CEOs of major Multinational companies are men. Women deserve an equal chance to take up the same roles. Looking at women taking up authoritative roles will empower young girls and women.
10. Invest in Women-run Businesses
We all know about the discrimination women face in their professional life. A few instances are, women don’t get equal pay for doing the same work as their male colleagues; they sometimes don’t get promotion for the same reason. And sometimes there are cases of sexual harassment at workplace.
There are cases where the employers choose a man with the same qualifications over a newly married woman. The reason? “She just got married, she will get pregnant soon and take maternity leave” These reasons are just the tip of the iceberg.
If there are more women in entrepreneurship, then it will create better opportunities for more women. The past few years have been transformative for female entrepreneurs. The numbers of women-owned businesses have increased rapidly but, some aspects of business development are still a problem for many women. A major problem is funding.
According to a survey in 2018, only 2.2% of investors are willing to invest money in female-founded businesses. But your values and investments do not have to be mutually exclusive. If you’d like to advance gender parity in the world of business with your own money there are many opportunities to do so.
In conclusion, we need to ensure that women are equal stakeholders in all endeavours and are involved in decision making for economic development of a state or a nation or an individual. Until and unless this happens we cannot say that true women empowerment has been achieved!
