As we celebrate the centenary of International Women’s Day today, we must guard against platitudes as well as patronising. As for gains recorded in the working and living conditions of women the world over, and in the matter of achieving some of the rights that men take for granted, it cannot be gainsaid that much that is positive has
happened since March 1911 when the day was first celebrated in Germany. The political rights of women — including that of voting and to be elected to public office — have advanced even in countries which are ultra-conservative or in the throes of multiple crises. Examples can be found in Central Africa, and West and Central Asia. But an observation such as this needs to be treated with caution. Gains in political rights have not necessarily led to social and economic emancipation, as was the case, say, in the former socialist bloc in the matter of workers’ rights. It is clear that there is nothing automatic about the gaining of freedoms by a section of society, women in particular, who in most cases suffer a double disadvantage — in the public sphere and on the home front. They work hard, often putting in longer and more arduous hours than men, but do not get compensated sufficiently in remuneration, recognition, or in the award of property rights or leadership roles in society. While it is true that the spread of education-induced awareness does lead to the raising of the position of women in society, this by itself does not necessarily translate to equality. Numerous studies in North America and Western Europe suggest that women do not enjoy the same remuneration as men in many spheres of economic life, and that in-built social prejudices often inhibit their rise to top levels in various institutions, including in industry and business. There is also a fair amount of patronising. In addition, the flagrant display of images of women’s bodies, severed from context, is extensively placed in marketing, media and entertainment with an eye on sales through titillation, which many feel might be just a step away from the encouragement of pornography.
In the world’s poorer countries, including India, gender discrimination takes on more raw forms. Women and girls in a household typically get to have their first taste of inequality in terms of diet, nutrition, access to health and education, and very often in the matter of asserting their reproductive rights. Governments make the politically correct noises but budget allocations that might help change the inequality status of women are not sufficiently in step with pronouncements made to mark occasions such as International Women’s Day. This is particularly an irony in India where many women are found in leading positions in an array of fields, where the intellectual underpinning of women’s emancipation remains full of verve, and there exists the historical dimension of the participation of women in the anti-colonial movement. If we look at the world picture, we cannot but remind ourselves that the last 100 years have been the most violent in human history on account of world wars, revolutions, forced migrations as well as natural disasters. It is a truism that women and children bear the brunt when a society faces such upheavals. If International Women’s Day is to have any serious meaning — the UN Secretary-General is to make a formal statement on this day and US President Barack Obama has officially proclaimed March to be Women’s History Month — and not become a victim of tokenism, the women’s movement must consciously seek to become a part of other movements for wider democratisation. Only then are governments and the entrenched power-wielders in society likely to pay any heed.