Gender equality should be taken seriously as an index in measuring the health of India’s democracy, said Malini Parthasarathy, chairperson, The Hindu Group Publishing Private Limited, here on Friday.

She was delivering the keynote address during a session on ‘Increasing female empowerment in India’s growth story’ at the two-day annual leadership conclave organised by the Indian Women Network (IWN) Southern Region.

Gender empowerment was too often left out of the calculus when evaluating the strength of a country’s democracy, unlike factors like caste, class, religion and region, which had much emphasis, she said.

“What is required is the voicing of a vigorous female perspective on political issues, an unapologetic highlighting of the priorities for women and a more emphatic enunciation of women’s rights being seen as an integral part of the democratic package,” she said.

Though there was a substantial representation of women in the Indian Parliament and State Assemblies, she said that unlike in Western democracies, the women leaders here tend to stay in the shadows, barring a few exceptions.

With cities like Chennai and Delhi having women Mayors, she said the situation was not all bleak, but changing. “However, there is a lingering sense of unease that these are still tokens of female representation and not part of a seamless mosaic of diversity so integral to an enduring democratic vision,” Dr. Parthasarathy said.

‘Not an economic force’

Despite constitutional guarantees of gender equality and absence of legal fetters, she said the gender gap remained alarmingly wide, mainly because women were still not an economic force. She said India’s female labour force participation rate of 20%, one of the lowest in the world, was a matter of concern, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

A GE and Avtar research report of November 2021 said that women make up only 12% of India’s manufacturing sector, she noted. 

She said the situation was poor even in the corporate sector, with only 29 companies in the 2020 Fortune 500 list having women leaders with executive powers. While sectors like banking and insurance had women leaders, men dominated sectors like energy, oil, gas, real estate, automobiles and infrastructure, she added.

Stepping up

With India’s economic story remaining rich with promise, she said women needed to step up to transcend the traditional barriers and become truly equal participants in India’s transformational journey from the 75th year of its independence towards a century. Without women stepping up, it would be unrealistic to continue to place the entire burden of expectations on society and the government to effect transformational change, she said.

While there was an understandable demand for gender sensitivity to reflect in flexible working hours, safety, maternity leave and other benefits, she said there was also a need for women to overcome traditional hesitation and challenge gender stereotypes by entering core sectors like manufacturing and industry.

She said women must enter the factory floor and not settle for peripheral roles with the excuse that it helped them balance work with domestic duties. She said true empowerment began with women signalling their willingness to be equal partners, ready to shoulder the hard work just as much as men, spend long hours at work and resist playing to gender stereotypes.

Agreeing with Dr. Parthasarathy on the need for creating the right ecosystem and for women to step up, Shobha Dixit, chairwoman, IWN Southern Region, who delivered the concluding remarks at the session, highlighted the work of IWN and another informal group in enabling women in the manufacturing sector to achieve this objective.

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/gender-equality-should-be-a-key-index-in-measuring-health-of-democracy/article66549121.ece