Patriarchy exerts a profound influence on the socioeconomic standing and opportunities available to middle-class working women in India. Despite strides towards gender equality, traditional gender roles and norms persist, often relegating women to subordinate positions within both the household and the workplace. Within the patriarchal framework, women are expected to prioritize familial duties over career advancement, leading to limited mobility and lower workforce participation rates. Additionally, ingrained biases and stereotypes perpetuate wage disparities and hinder professional growth for women, creating a glass ceiling that obstructs their ascent to leadership roles. Moreover, patriarchal attitudes often manifest in workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, and unequal access to resources and opportunities, further marginalizing middle-class working women. Thus, the pervasive influence of patriarchy profoundly impacts the position of middle-class working women in India, constraining their advancement and perpetuating gender-based inequalities.
Tag: Role of women in the society.
Decoding the Question:
- In the Introduction try to write briefly about patriarchy and how it is entrenched in Indian Society.
- In Body,
- Elaborate the impact of patriarchy on the position of middle-class working women in India.
- Bifurcate and show the External and Internal impact.
- Conclude with the findings of Global Gender Gap Report 2021, how various government schemes are steps towards abolishing the idea of patriarchy through upliftment of women.
Answer:
Patriarchy as an ideology is deeply embedded in several societies, culture and institutions as well as in the minds of men and women. Patriarchy is a concept discussed by sociologists and feminist as an institutional structure with male dominance or an ideology based on the power of men.
‘Patriarchy’ is pervasive in India but varies in degree depending on region, community, class, caste, and religious or social group. The impact of patriarchy is visible in all the indicators of Indian women’s status: health, education, political status, economic participation, law, and its implementation.
Impact of the Patriarchy on a Middle-Class Working Woman in India:
- Working middle class women are often subjected to various social pressures ranging from economic dimension to decision making. Power relation with the patriarchal society has become the recent subject matter for social analysis.
- Though women get higher educational qualification and knowledge they often face male domination in the institutional structure by not having enough decision making power and in many cases women are not offered superior positions in the organizational setup, mostly it is occupied by male.
- Middle class working women beyond their work in organization where they work, they also have to work in the unpaid domestic activity like role of housewives, taking care of children and domestic household works.
- Apart from these they don’t have complete financial control of family income as it is mostly controlled by the male head of the family. By engaging themselves in profes-sional activities Indian middle class women could have achieved some economic benefits and feel empowered but often they are not supported by their partners, families or external sources.
- Marriage and motherhood bring multiple challenges leading many women to drop out of the workforce. This can be due to societal/familial pressure or being unable to balance priorities at work and home, without adequate support.
- Sexual harassment is a persistent threat at workplace. The recent MeToo Movement highlighted the prevalent and insidious nature of this. Data from the Ministry of Women and Child Development states that sexual harassment of women increased by 54 per cent from 2014-2017.
- Lack of confidence, self-doubt, and a perceived gap in skills of networking, team building, risk-taking and financial management were the factors that women experienced as impediments.
The recent Global Gender Gap Report 2021 shows that gender gap in India has widened to 62.5%, largely due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, decrease in women’s labour force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, income inequality. Schemes such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, direct cash transfer to women’s accounts, Ujjwala Scheme, One Stop Centre Scheme, and Sukanya Samriddhi are implemented to uplift the status of women and step towards abolishing the ideology of patriarchy.
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