Gattu and Gita were twins, equally healthy and equally bright. They both got admitted to school, but while Gattu got into a private school, Gita in a government school. After school, while Gattu used to play with his friends, Gita had added responsibility to help her mother in the kitchen. As they grew up, Gattu began to pursue his interest in cricket at a private academy, while Gita could only practice her dance at home. As years passed, Gattu went to college in the city, while Gita got married after graduating from a local college.

This isn’t just a story, but a reality for many ‘Gitas’ who face similar, if not the same, gender unequal bias throughout life, which hinders them from converting promises into reality.
In this essay, we will try to analyze what is stopping gender equality from fructifying, what could be achieved by its application, and how we can achieve them. We aim to take a sample case for India to discuss the issue at hand.
Historically, men and women had equal status in society. During the Rig Vedic period, women could participate in sabhas, samitis, vidhata, e.g. Lopamudra, Gargi. The story of the debate between Gargi and Yojnavalkya in Brihad Aranyana Upanishada is a testament to the intellectual prowess and equal opportunity bestowed upon women.
However, with the transformation of society to agricultural societies, women’s roles got reduced to four walls in many societies, and gender inequality began rearing its ugly head.
Mill, the great enlightenment scholar, has rightly captured this in his essay on women: “Slavery of all forms has been abolished, except slavery of women. It is so prevalent that it appears natural.” Let us examine this gender inequality in various domains.
Politically, women have only 14% representation in LS and 9% in state legislative assembly. In administration, we have only 19% women in the police force, fewer in the armed forces, and in the judiciary there’s no woman chief justice in India, while only 2 out of 34 supreme court judges are women.
At the level of society, over the years women continue to lag behind men on health and education parameters. Though there’s uniformity at the entry-level of education, high dropout rates have been observed by ASER report at the secondary and senior secondary levels.
On health parameters, WHO reports that only 12% of women in India have freedom of choice on reproductive health. 50% of women are anemic, maternal mortality is 112, while access to contraceptives and menstrual hygiene products remains fickle.
Economically, female labor force participation rate has decreased to 22%. The wage gap report (WEF) highlights a 35% gap between incomes of males and females for the same job. The Economic Survey (2018-19) has highlighted the pink-colorization of jobs and a glass ceiling that hinders women from reaching higher positions.
Similarly, in new technologies such as AI, blockchain, big data, STEM, etc., women’s representation is less than 20%. Even in space, of all human space travelers, only 13% are women (NASA report).
The recent uplifted restrictions of women at commissioned positions in the army from combat roles highlight gender inequality in the armed forces. This is despite India having a history of brave women soldiers/warriors from Rani Laxmi Bai to Preetilata Waddedar to Rani Gaindiler…
The absence of women’s perspective in security, as highlighted by Cynthia Enloe in “Bananas, Beaches,” where she questioned “where are the women,” shows gendered exploitations in events of war and conflicts. Women have been the worst sufferers and abused as forced labor, sexual exploitation, and even as human bombers by terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Boko Haram etc.
Having highlighted the gender inequality across various sectors, let us focus on what all could be achieved by turning the promise of equality into reality and how we can achieve that.
Jefferson has famously remarked that the measure of development of any society is the amount of progress made by women. For any nation, society, family to achieve its potential, women have to be uplifted to the level of equality with men.
Christine Lagarde (IMF chief) has highlighted that if India has as many women as men in its workforce, its economy could increase by 27%.
Similarly, the World Bank (Towards Equality Report) has highlighted that under women’s leadership there’s 13% less corruption and policy is more peace and care-focused than on war and conflicts.
The success of Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Finland – in having achieved top place at HDI Index is rooted in gender equality at all levels of society.
While globally we’ve awakened to the call to turn promises into reality through steps such as UN resolution 1325 (women in conflict zones), Beijing Declaration, CEDAW, etc., and at the national level, the 73rd and 74th Amendment giving 1/3rd reservation to women, improving women-oriented infrastructure e.g. Pink Public toilets, separate coaches in metros, push for education, health focus through ASHA, Anganwadi etc., so much more is to be achieved.
As pointed out by the WEF report, at the present pace of reforms, it would take women 99.5 years to reach the level of parity with men.
The need of the moment is to arise and invest boldly in policies and programs to accelerate the process of bridging the gap.
The starting point could be political representation at Lok Sabha, in proportion to the population, to be made possible by passing the 33% reservation bill. Further, increasing the marriage age of women from 18 to 21 years could do away with the evil of early marriages and related health and psychological complications.
Further, we need to take inspiration from the success of women at ISRO (35% female staff) and performance at the Olympics (women dominating in the medal tally of the nation) to remove social hindrances from career choices.
State, civil society, private sector, together in collaboration need to work to uplift women and make gender inequality a thing of the past. It is essential to achieve our immediate and long-term goals too, such as SDG goal 2030 (Goal 5 = Gender equality), the goal of reaching a $5 trillion economy by 2024, and more than the goal of making sure that no more Gitas sacrifice their future and aspirations under the burden of social and economic structures and get full and equal opportunity to fulfill their potential.