Covid wave washing away the prospects for Indian women

Women are not born but made. What better than India to exemplify this statement by Simone de Beauvoir. The Indian women are fascinating. Her ability to give, share, bear, nurture, cook, work, adjust is strongly admired. Throughout our country’s tumultuous history, she suffered so much yet she continues to retain qualities that make her unique.

The scenario was changing for Indian females with increased literacy rates, economic and political participation, increased job opportunities, decreased female feticide & infanticide rates, but we can’t turn our back to other realities like cases of female harassment and violence, which doubled as per Women Commission or larger number of women workforces quitting out of jobs during the pandemic. So basically, if one looks at the status of women now, one must look at two sides of the coin; one side which is promising, and one side which is bleak. 

Although the stature of women in India has been improving, of course with much pain and fights, the recent report by World Economic Forum 2021, that states that India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries in the Global Gender Gap came as a blow to all feminists, women empowerment flag bearers and to the Indian female themselves.

This made India the third-worst performer in South Asia with only Pakistan and Afghanistan faring worse. According to the report, India has closed 62.5% of its gender gap. This figure was 66.8% last year which means a significant regression in gender equality. Worryingly, India declined on the economic participation and opportunity subindex, a trend which could only have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This was ironic, as our female frontline toiled hard during the Covid War as essential workers and caregivers. 

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While the gender gap is evident on several fronts, the economic gap especially stands out. Indian women have one of the lowest labour market participation rates in the world—only about 25% of women in India are actively working or looking for work, compared to 82% of men. Those who do work earn (on average), about one-fifth of a man’s income, according to the WEF report. Also states like Rajasthan, Haryana continues to battle the low sex ratio, which evidently is the result of larger female feticide and infanticides.

Again, women have been hit doubly hard by this as they are often discriminatingly seen as dispensable by companies and are more prone to retrenchment. This may be what the index is showing in terms of the decline in Indian women’s economic participation. In fact, Indian women’s labour force participation rate fell from 24.8% to 22.3%. Further, the share of women in professional and technical roles declined to 29.2%, while their share in senior and managerial positions was just 14.6%. And the pandemic will certainly worsen these statistics.

Therefore, taken together women are facing a double whammy. They were anyway facing populist political headwinds and now must deal with the impact of Covid which is likely to affect them more economically and socially. But if women lose out, societies lose out. In fact, now is the time that humanity needs to muster all its resources to come out of the current crises – from Covid to the global economic downturn and climate change.

We need women to be equal participants in the labour force and become scientists, engineers, and doctors to invent vaccines, create green technologies and pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this crucial period of transition. In fact, the world will be handicapped if women are invisible and allowed to slip. And for developing countries like India, the widening gender gap will seriously retard their progress at a very pivotal moment in history. Let’s now make our women, the women of substance. 

We need to agree that Gender Equality is the basis of society; one cannot achieve full development in a society if there is no gender equality in the society. Any Government has a role to play in fostering equality in general through certain policies. Although India is notorious for the discrimination between the sexes, nonetheless, the government, civil societies and other social workers leave no stone unturned for women\’s upliftment with the new world at the forefront.

Several such strategies have been implemented and are well-intentioned. Schemes and Policies like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, Ujawala, One Stop Center, Kanyadhan, etc have been a milestone in reducing the gender gap, violence & discrimination against women and improving the status of women, but the real effects can be seen depending on execution-style and performance. 

Such policies have overt and indirect effects on the social standing of both men and women. The chances of losing equality rise if such effects are not expected. Achieving the Action Plan targets includes broad-based ministry-to-minister cooperation.

Gender equity is a primary social principle and priority in India Reinforcing equity is a requirement for meeting the central objectives of the government\’s Education, Skills and Competence and Well-being Programme. The Government\’s Gender Equality Action Plan gathers policy priorities and steps related to promoting gender equality and combating discrimination.

The Action Plan is a mechanism to implement gender empowerment policies in the country which includes steps for all ministries to share responsibilities in their respective branches of government. This was brought together to ensure that inclusion is always embedded in crucial social changes and core programs, in addition to the steps that strengthen the status of women and men.

In conclusion, we can say that even though the steps which are taken by the government in this direction of women empowerment through removing the inequalities between women and men are commendable but there is still a lot to be done in this field. The government has prioritized reducing abuse against women and implemented special steps to tackle women and girls trafficking domestic violence, and sexual harassment. It has stepped up attempts at incorporating and integrating gender into policymaking, especially after COVID’s devastating first and second wave in the country. Women\’s training and jobs projects, along with microfinance schemes, touch underprivileged rural women in faraway corners of the country. There is now improving regulation to tackle sexual abuse, domestic violence, and unfair remuneration.

The untapped potential of the country is firmly demanding its seat at the table and simultaneously ensuring the returns in terms of a developed individual, a developed family, a developed community, and eventually a trillion-dollar nation!

(Views are personal)