Posts Tagged ‘consensus’

Guest post by Saikat Kundu:


Sexism in India refers to beliefs or attitudes in India that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other.

Discrimination and violence against women is prevalent, and sexual harassment at the workplace and lack of education continue to be identified as major problems.

Gender inequality, which is the devaluation of women and social domination of men, still continues to prevail in India.

Women are usually deemed as dowry burdens, the weaker gender, and worthy of a lower social status compared to men.

This subject raises the cultural aspects about the role of a female child in society, what her human rights are as a human being and a number of sensitive issues.This issue is important because there is nearly universal consensus on the need for gender equality.. Gender based discrimination against female children is pervasive across the world.

Sex selection of the before birth and neglect of the female child after birth, in childhood and, during the [teenage] years has outnumbered males to females in India and also in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Korea .

As per ?? 105 women per 100 men in North America and Europe but there are only 94 women per 100 men in India and other Asian countries like China and South Korea.

Domestic violence against women in India is a big problem.

For example, a paper published in International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory shows that in 2007 there were 20,737 reported case of rape, 8,093 cases of death due to dowry, 10,950 cases of sexual harassment with total crime of 185312 A U.N. Population Fund report claimed that up to 70 percent of married women aged 15–49 in India are victims of beatings or coerced sex.

In 1997, in a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court of India took a strong stand against sexual harassment of women in the workplace.

The number of girls born and surviving in India is significantly less compared with the number of boys, due to the disproportionate numbers of female foetuses being aborted and baby girls deliberately neglected and left to die.

Compared to the normal ratio of births, 950 girls for every 1000 boys,most states of India, especially Harayana, Mumbai and even Indians in overseas, are not meeting the standard,supported by the steeper child sex ratio, which can as low as 830 to 1000 boys.

India has a low sex ratio, the chief reason being that many women die before reaching adulthood.

It is therefore suggested by many experts, that the low sex ratio in India are attributed by female infanticides and sex-selective abortions.

Even though gender selection and selective abortion were banned in India under Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostics Technique Act,in 1994,the use of ultrasound scanning for gender selection continues.

Other institution effort,such as releasing advertisement calling female feticides a sin by the Health Ministry of India and annual Girl-child day, can be observed to raise status of girls ans to combat female infanticide.

Female feticide will decrease the population of female and further skew the sex ratio of India.


In rural India girls continue to be less educated than the boys.

According to a 1998 report by U.S. Department of Commerce, the chief barrier to female education in India are inadequate school facilities (such as sanitary facilities), shortage of female teachers and gender bias in curriculum (majority of the female characters being depicted as weak and helpless vs. strong, adventurous, and intelligent men with high prestige jobs) The Prime Minister of India and the Planning Commission also vetoed a proposal to set up an Indian Institute of Technology exclusively for females.

Although India had witnessed substantial improvements in female literacy and enrolment rate since the 1990s, the quality of education for female remains to be heavily compromised as the country continues to hold greater value for male than female.