A few days back, a report published in Times of India Gujarat edition caught my attention. It says that 70 to 80 percent of kidneys donated to save the family members come from women. The irony, however, is that women themselves get no kidneys when they need one. In just one hospital in Ahmedabad, as many as 100 women die every year either because they do not get kidney from their family or are not brought for follow up treatment. “We have only 14 husbands who donate kidneys to their wives against 141 wives who donated kidneys to their husbands” says a doctor from Nadiad kidney Hospital. Report also says that 90 percent sons get kidneys donated compared to only 10 percent to their female counterparts.

While studying the women prisoners for my doctoral work, I found that almost 40 percent of women serving life imprisonment in UP and Rajasthan jails were actually coaxed into taking the blame of the murder committed by the male members of the family in some dispute over property or land. Since, right from the child hood women are taught to sacrifice for the honour of their families, they agreed and resigned to their fate. They were told that soon they would be bailed out; however, after few months the family members even stopped visiting them, leaving them crying, depressed, and cursing to their fate. In most of the cases, their husbands got remarried.

The discrimination faced by girl child in access to and control over resources- material, human and intangible resources often lead to their poor self esteem and powerlessness. This takes me back to my early memories when I used to visit my maternal uncle’s family. My inquisitive mind always used to raise questions when I observed a funny practice being adopted by the women of the family during serving the meals, the men used to be served first in best of the cutleries and in the most presentable manner, while the women would only eat after the men finish and that too whatever is left out.

I often come across men saying that their wives do nothing but are house wives. At times when I ask women where they work, they answer would be, “No where, I am just house wife”. This reflects how the unequal gender relations manifest itself in different ways. Since the work of men has monitory benefits, they have access to most of the resources and decision making. Women’s work and women’s contribution to the economy is either undervalued or out rightly dismissed. The way work is defined, not just by society but also by economists, devalues women’s contribution to the survival and maintenance of household and to family occupation. Essentially what I mean is that women’s work is not valued in monitory terms.

During my workshops with rural women, when I would  ask them who is supposed to take important decisions in their family and why, the answer would be, “Men” because they earn and are more ‘knowledgeable’. Later when I would ask women to give monitory terms to what they do at home and how much their families would have to pay if they outsource the same task, the exercise often revealed that these women earn more than their husbands and to accomplish their daily tasks they do require much more knowledge and skills since they come across different challenges every day to run their families and home, while men usually do repetitive tasks and blow up most of their earnings in liquor and tobacco.

In rural areas the gender differences in child rearing practices are more visible, as girls have low access to education, health care, and other basic resources compared to boys,   while in urban educated families discrimination against girls is also done but in more subtle manner. The declining sex ratio in the age group of 0 to 6 years of population in so called urbanized and educated states of India reveal the fact and does not require any explanation.

One of the most glaring dimensions of gender inequality is women’s lack of control over their own body and sexuality. Starting from the age of marriage to access to contraception, abortion and health care, women’s experience of gender injustice is linked to their inability to decide when and whom they marry, when and how many children they have, access to contraception, reluctance of men to take responsibility of their sexuality, sexual abuse, violence and above all the vulnerability of women to sexually transmitted disease such as HIV AIDS.

The constitution of India not only provides equality to women but also empowers state to take any special measures to neutralize the cumulative social, economic, educational and political disadvantage by the provision of Fundamental rights under the article 14, 15, 15(3), 15 (A) and 16 but it has been proved time and again that the legal provision alone can not change the Indian scenario until and unless the basic mind set is changed.

Despite the rise in education and economic status of India, the unfavorable development indicators towards women continue to bother one’s mind as to how long women would be denied of basic right of existence, food, health care, education, control over their bodies and access to mobility and other resources? How long they would be victims of child abuse, dowry deaths, and would be expected to make sacrifices for the well being of men folks at all the stages of their lives?

Unfortunately when a debate of this kind begins, this becomes an issue of men versus women. I don’t hold men responsible for as they themselves are also part of the same socialization process.  I strongly believe, gender stereo types that are prevalent today have emerged out from the patriarchal system and have been the prime cause of formation of most of the societies based on inequalities. Even the mores and rituals across the religions promote gender equity.

In changing scenario even men to some extent are victim of the socialization process.  . ,  If the girls are nurtured right  from childhood to learn household chores and be  prepared to go to some one else’s house after marriage, in the same way boys also have the pressure to excel, perform and be prepared to shoulder the responsibilities of family. The way women are burdened alone with parental and house hold responsibilities, the same way men are dependent on women for so many things and are also deprived of the bliss of sharing the child rearing. You ask any man living alone which has become a need of the day to stay alone for job or other reasons, you will hear them cribbing about not been able to manage with food and washing cloths. If women are not encouraged to show even constructive anger and assert themselves, men are taught not to cry their heart out even if they want to, else they will be stigmatized as weak or girlish. And the instances are plenty. 

In terms of the changes in society that we are going through due to urbanization and globalization, I think a collective effort would only bring change.  Change begins from within…from ones own family  or from one’s own surrounding, offices… And by we all, I mean, both men and women. The beginning can be done to observe sensitively our own behavior. Let us think..

• Don’t we expect our spouses to perform in stereo typical manner or do we give freedom to make them their own choices according to their skills, wishes qualifications and needs?
• Don’t we perpetuate discrimination against women even in the most subtle form?
• Do we ever create support system for each other and compliment each other?
• Have we ever observed that most of the abuses are targeted to women? How many of us restrain ourselves to use them?
• Who takes the major decisions in our family?
• Don’t we use any gender stereo typical statements like child caring is the job of women or don’t behave like a women or just because she is a woman she is sitting on top position or all boys are cheat. Well friends, there is as much diversity among women as among men.
• Have we ever realized that domestic violence is the most severe form of unequal power relations?
• Who has the last word in the argument? Haven’t you heard men saying “Kah diya bas kah diya, now don’t speak much”
• How many of us rear boys and girls equally. The way girls need to be educated and all of us here do educate them but in the same way boys also need to be taught cooking. How many of us do that?
• Women are different in the form of their biological role of motherhood. How many of us are sensitive towards that?
• When there is a case of eve teasing or rape, many of us tend to blame women. “Because they were dressed up in that manner or they were going out alone or they themselves invited trouble etc etc so it was bound to happen”  The findings of ample number of studies have suggested that there is no statistical correlation between the cloths women wear and the crime against them.
• Many of us say that women are biggest enemy of women. Isn’t it because of low self esteem and that’s how we have been taught?

I do not have all the answers but I think we all should start observing ourselves and then slowly bring about changes within ourselves. I never blame men for the subordinate position of women neither I held them responsible. It is the social construct and child rearing practices that are responsible.

I rather believe in the balanced view and unlike the radical feminism, the balanced view on gender equity does not aim to divide men and women and cause conflicts. Rather it brings together issues, relating to men and women that have created unequal relations. It is not even asking to reverse the roles and get men what women don’t want to do or get women be like “MEN” behaving aggressively, smoking and acquiring all those characteristics that we have been hating for centuries, however, women should definitely assert wherever it is needed, they should have access to resources, knowledge, decision making and should not tolerate injustice at the same time they may continue to keep their positive feminine characteristics intact.