prasad1
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This post will be of interest only for people living in 21st century. Others may please skip the post.
As one of the world’s most socially heterogeneous societies, building solidarity across social groups has been a singular challenge in India. Social bias in India is pervasive across a range of key cleavages — whether caste or class, region or religion.
In this piece we discuss a different social bias, not between different castes and religions but within all castes and religions, namely gender. Last week, while launching the “beti bachao, beti padhao” initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called female foeticide a “mental illness” ailing the whole country. “We cannot call ourselves citizens of 21st century by practising such a crime,” he said. His comments describe the distressing persistence of female foeticide in contemporary India and underscore the broader scourge of gender bias in Indian society.
One might have expected that the major societal changes that have occurred over the past three decades — improvements in literacy and levels of education, rapid economic growth, and urbanisation — would have led to a decline in gender bias. While there is undoubtedly some improvement in the gender gap, the growing sex ratio problem and continued gender-based violence reveal just how far India still has to travel to bring dignity to half its population.
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Gender discrimination in India is undoubtedly one of the county’s most shameful social realities. It is not just that it is inequitable and unfair; quite simply, any society where half the population suffers from social bias has already hobbled itself and its future. Although urban Indians are gradually showing more openness in their attitudes on women’s attire, this is not the case on the critical issue of son preference, an attitude that remains deeply rooted in India’s family ideals and social structure across a wide cross-section of society.
Clearly economic growth does not appear to be sufficient to remove the social incentives for having fewer daughters. Without frontally addressing some norms and structures, and fundamentally delegitimising gender bias in wider social discourse, there is little reason to believe that India will see a reversal in male child preferences in the foreseeable future.
The love for sons and appropriate attire - The Hindu
As one of the world’s most socially heterogeneous societies, building solidarity across social groups has been a singular challenge in India. Social bias in India is pervasive across a range of key cleavages — whether caste or class, region or religion.
In this piece we discuss a different social bias, not between different castes and religions but within all castes and religions, namely gender. Last week, while launching the “beti bachao, beti padhao” initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called female foeticide a “mental illness” ailing the whole country. “We cannot call ourselves citizens of 21st century by practising such a crime,” he said. His comments describe the distressing persistence of female foeticide in contemporary India and underscore the broader scourge of gender bias in Indian society.
One might have expected that the major societal changes that have occurred over the past three decades — improvements in literacy and levels of education, rapid economic growth, and urbanisation — would have led to a decline in gender bias. While there is undoubtedly some improvement in the gender gap, the growing sex ratio problem and continued gender-based violence reveal just how far India still has to travel to bring dignity to half its population.
............................................
Gender discrimination in India is undoubtedly one of the county’s most shameful social realities. It is not just that it is inequitable and unfair; quite simply, any society where half the population suffers from social bias has already hobbled itself and its future. Although urban Indians are gradually showing more openness in their attitudes on women’s attire, this is not the case on the critical issue of son preference, an attitude that remains deeply rooted in India’s family ideals and social structure across a wide cross-section of society.
Clearly economic growth does not appear to be sufficient to remove the social incentives for having fewer daughters. Without frontally addressing some norms and structures, and fundamentally delegitimising gender bias in wider social discourse, there is little reason to believe that India will see a reversal in male child preferences in the foreseeable future.
The love for sons and appropriate attire - The Hindu
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