A Study on Gender Inequality in India

Abstract

Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, strategies and measures must often be available to compensate for women’s historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from otherwise operating on a level playing field. Equity leads to equality. Gender equality requires equal enjoyment by women and men of socially-valued goods, opportunities, resources and rewards. Where gender inequality exists, it is generally women who are excluded or disadvantaged in relation to decision-making and access to economic and social resources. Therefore a critical aspect of promoting gender equality is the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. Gender equality does not mean that men and women become the same; only that access to opportunities and life changes is neither dependent on, nor constrained by, their sex. Achieving gender equality requires women’s empowerment to ensure that decision- making at private and public levels and access to resources is no longer weighted in men’s favor, so that both women and men can fully participate as equal partners in productive and reproductive life. Gender Inequality is deep penetrated in Indian society. Although it is a global phenomenon, but in the patriarchal Indian society,- it has spread its tentacles widely. Discrimination against women is found even before her birth in the form of female feticide and when she is born female infanticide has been found in practice.