India's women: Big strides but a long way to go

[prasad1]

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Indian women might have broken through the glass ceiling on the political, professional and corporate fronts, and urban women especially have made remarkable progress and asserted their independence in many areas involving their career and personal choices, but the fact remains that insecurity haunts them on the streets, in offices, in their own homes or even in the mother's womb, activists say.


Women activists say that measured against the vastness of the country's billion-plus population, nearly half of them women, ground realities are really harsh and paint a grim picture of women and their status in society.


Despite the huge strides they have made in their careers, women make up just 25.6 per cent of the workforce in the organised sector, according to figures of the National Commission for Women (NCW).

India's women: Big strides but a long way to go - The Times of India

 

[padders]

I read recently an interesting article about a woman called Sampat Pal Devi who formed a "gulabi gang"(women wearing pink saris) who confront men who beat up their wives.
It seems it all started when Sampat saw a man beating up his wife in public. She was disgusted by the other villagers' indifference and told him to stop. He hurled a few expletives at her, and continued thrashing the poor woman. Later, Sampat got five women together, went to the man's house, pulled him out, and she and the other women thrashed him with lathis until he promised never to repeat this action. She realised that there was strength in unity, and thereby formed what she called the "Gulabi Gang" - ie women wearing pink saris who fight against female oppression. It seems this has swelled to 20000 women in chapters in villages across India. This group has staged marches to police stations and confronted officers who refused to register complaints of abuse against women, threatened men who beat up their wives, prevented child marriages,encouraged parents to send their girl-children to school, etc.

The Guardian newspaper from the UK listed Sampat among the top women activists in the world! ​

The lot of women, especially in rural areas, is still pitiable, but things are gradually changing.