Does Gender Matter (?).
Dr Ipsita Pradhan
If you search for the most trending topics on any moment of timeline, then undoubtedly you are going to find women empowerment in the list! If you will look at the purpose of any meeting, then at least one third of them would tell, it was meant to pay respect to the femalehood of a person! If you travel from village to village in India then surely you will find a Devi temple in each of them! If you are looking at the population of India then 48% of them are females! But when you look at the workforce of India, then they make only 25% of the total workforce (in 2022)! According to reports of The Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) only 10% of working-age women in India are either employed or looking for jobs! Again 94% of the total women workers are employed in the unorganized sectors (like domestic helper, construction worker, garment worker, vendor and sales girls, helper in food industry, etc). Only 20% of them work in urban sectors. Most of them hail from the financially backward section of the society and the level of need of money for them is really critical! But if you look at the results of various board exams of the last several years, then the pass- percentage of girls and their name in the list of top students always outsign boys. You can also look at the result of recent UPSC examinations and see the achievement of women candidates (!).
But this situation is not only limited to the workforce related to people working in organized or unorganized sectors but the situation is also similar in our Parliament. As per the latest Election Commission of India data, as of October 2021, women represent 10.5% of the total members of the Parliament. Our present Lok Sabha has a total of 78 female members out of 542 members. And our Rajya Sabha has a total of 224 members, out of which 24 are female members. And if you look at the UN report of January 2023, the data shows that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide and that achieving gender parity in political life is far off. Just 17 countries have a woman Head of State, and 19 countries have a woman Head of Government. Data compiled by UN Women show that women represent 22.8 percent of Cabinet members heading Ministries, leading a policy area. There are only 13 countries in which women hold 50 percent or more of the positions of Cabinet Ministers leading policy areas. Only 26.5 percent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses are women. Only six countries have 50 per cent or more women in parliament in single or lower houses: Rwanda (61 per cent), Cuba (53 per cent), Nicaragua (52 per cent), Mexico (50 per cent), New Zealand (50 per cent), and the United Arab Emirates (50 per cent). A further 23 countries have reached or surpassed 40 per cent, including 13 countries in Europe, six in Africa, three in Latin America and the Caribbean, and one in Asia. At the current rate of progress, gender parity in national legislative bodies will not be achieved before 2063. The five most commonly held portfolios by women Cabinet Ministers are Women and gender equality, followed by Family and children affairs, Social inclusion and development, Social protection and social security, and Indigenous and minority affairs.
In 2019, in India the new Lok Sabha has the highest number of women MPs, 14 percent of total. At present 2 of them are Cabinet Ministers, whereas 7 others are serving as Minister of States. There are 3 states in India which have women Governors at present. Apart from parliament and governance in our country women are also holding the lead positions as Chairperson of SEBI, Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Chairperson of National Commission for women, President of Indian Olympic Association, also a total of 100 companies have women as their managing directors or CEOs and the total number of directorships held by women as MD & CEO are 109, (according to the NSE data). And above all at present the first citizen of our nation and the supreme leader of our democracy is also a woman, Ms Droupadi Murmu.
Our Mahamahim Droupadi Murmu ji, before becoming the President, was the Governor of Jharkhand state. Prior to that, she won the 2000 Odisha Assembly Elections from RairangpurAssembly Constituency and served two terms in the Odisha Assembly between 2000 and 2009. She was in independent charge of the Trade and Transport ministry from 6 March 2000 to 6 August 2002 during the BJP and BJD coalition government in Odisha and was the Minister of Fisheries and Livestock Development from 6 August 2002 to 16 May 2004. And prior to that she had served as a teacher. And to be truthful for all these reasons I’ve never liked when few people say, this time just because she is a female and belongs to a tribal community, both the factors served as a trumphcard for her for becoming the president of India. If you look at her portfolio, then undoubtedly she can leave most of the male parliamentarians and politicians of the present era far behind. But from the day when it was in news that the new Parliament House is going to be inaugurated by our prime minister instead of our president, really the question of gender partiality is the only thing that instantly comes to mind (!).
As per the structure of our democracy and constitution the president of the nation is considered as the leader. The president is at the top of the ecosystem of our democracy. We know for making a bill into act or law, finally it requires the authorization from our president. This is the beauty of our democracy that not a single person or designation or organization has been awarded with supreme power or all the authorizations. All the organizations work as an ecosystem. And the president of our nation keeps a watch on this ecosystem, who keeps an eye on every other organization of our democracy. The president of this nation stands above all the political parties, gender and community! So without any question or doubt the inauguration of the new Parliament House must be done by our Madam President only (!).
During most of the election campaigns our respected prime minister of India gives emphasis on women empowerment, about rights of women, about dignity of women and he himself had coined the phrase “beti bachao, beti padhao”. Even at so many instances we proudly tag our dear president’s picture and write, we could make a woman our president whereas the US still couldn’t achieve this! But the present situations and pictures we are seeing appear quite ifferent from those beautiful lines! The entire situation reminds me about the statement made by UN, “at the current rate, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years”. And the question in my mind is converting into a strong belief that, yes gender does matter (!).
Aboves are the personal and Solely opinions of the author
