According to UNDP, Human Development Report, India ranks 108th out of 166 countries on the Global Gender Inequality Index, highlighting deep-seated systemic disparities that restrict the empowerment of women.
Main Factors Responsible for Gender Inequality in India
Political Factors
Low Parliamentary Representation (14.4% of seats in LS) limits their impact on core lawmakers.
Proxy Political Leadership (Sarpanch Pati) prevents them from wielding their actual constitutional administrative powers.
Lack of Legislative Will: Eg: The Women’s Reservation Bill faced a 27-year legislative deadlock.
Economic Factors
Dismal Labor Force Participation: Cultural burdens and safety concerns keep women away from active formal employment opportunities.
Uncompensated Care Burden
Limited Asset Ownership due to structural legal and familial biases. Eg: Women constitute over 70% of agricultural laborers but own less than 14% of land.
Social Factors
Skewed Educational Attainment: poor families prioritize spending money on a son’s premium schooling over a daughter’s secondary education.
Prevalence of Child Marriage: Eg: NFHS-5 data reveals 23.3% of women are married off before turning 18.
Widespread Domestic Vulnerabilities: Deep social normalization of physical coercion creates unsafe, high-risk home environments for housewives.
Cultural Factors
Deep Rooted Son Meta-Preference: Eg: over 21 million “missing women” due to family sex-selection.
The Menace of Dowry: Treating brides as financial liabilities makes families view daughters with deep economic anxiety.
Purity and Pollution Taboos surrounding menstruation restrict girls from entering mainstream community spaces.
Ethical Factors
Objectification in Popular Media: Eg: Item songs in mainstream cinema reducing female actors to mere gaze objects.
Victim-Blaming Morality Narratives: Society unethically questions the character, clothing choices, and timings of female survivors of sexual assault.
Normalization of Everyday Misogyny: Tolerating everyday casual sexist jokes establishes a dangerous cultural baseline that justifies structural gender violence.
Contribution of Savitribai Phule
Pioneering Female Literacy: she established India’s first school for girls at Bhide Wada, Pune in 1848, breaking the orthodox upper-caste monopoly on education.
Championing Dalit Women’s Rights: by opening special schools for girls belonging to the marginalized Mahars and Mangs communities.
Providing Safe Refuge for Survivors: She founded the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha (Home for the Prevention of Infanticide) in 1863, offering a secure sanctuary for pregnant rape victims and vulnerable Brahmin widows.
Combating the Exploitation of Widows: She organized a historic barbers’ strike to protest against the cruel, orthodox custom of forcibly shaving the heads of grieving young widows.
Dismantling Untouchability: She opened the water well of her personal house to untouchables, directly challenging discriminatory water accessibility rules.
Institutionalizing Social Reform Platforms: She actively led the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truth-Seekers’ Society), promoting dowry-free inter-caste marriages conducted without Brahmin priests.
Through her profound poetry collections like Kavya Phule (1854) and Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (1892), she urged women to shed ignorance and seek education.
Exemplifying Selfless Public Service: She died a martyr’s death in 1897, contracting the Bubonic Plague while physically carrying infected Dalit children on her back to her son’s clinic.
Channeling the revolutionary spirit of Savitribai Phule through targeted gender budgeting can secure true parity.