What’s wrong with Indian women?
Or, to be exact, what’s wrong with Indian society?
Ammu's soft mouth would twist into a small, bitter smile at the memory - not of the wedding itself so much as the fact that she had permitted herself to be so painstakingly decorated before being led to the gallows. It seemed so absurd. So futile. Like polishing firewood.
- An excerpt from “The God of small things” by Arundhati Roy.
Indian women make up almost 17% of the world’s female population but account for 36% of global female suicide deaths.
More than 40% of the world's child marriages take place in India.
Only 23% Indian women were in the workforce in 2021.
More than 30% of married Indian women between the ages of 18 and 49 have experienced domestic violence.
Aditi (name changed), was a 24-year-old well-educated woman, with a government job in teaching. She had an arranged marriage to a 28-year-old man who earned less than her.
This wasn’t an issue for Aditi but it was for her new husband. Who often used to say,
“Do you think I’ll listen to what you say just because you earn more than me, huh? That must be the reason why you keep your head high as a horse!"
Things started getting worse for Aditi as time passed by. In the following months, she not only suffered terrible domestic violence but also the sight of her husband cheating on her with prostitutes in their own home.
The last straw for her was when he threw her out of their home in Delhi, which is sometimes called the rape capital of the world, at around 1-2 am. That night, she spent the entire night scared and alone in a park.
Aditi always informed her family about her miserable circumstances, but being from a conservative background, they never suggested divorce.
"Are you sure you didn’t do anything to make him mad? You should go and apologize to him. It must have been your fault!"
But after that horrific night, Aditi finally had the courage to tell them,
"I’m going to divorce this man. I’ve had enough! I’d be happy if you accepted my decision, but even if you don’t, I’m not taking a step backwards."
As expected, her family insisted not to divorce him.
"Why do you want to bring shame to our family? We should have never allowed you to take this government job. This must be the reason why your feet aren’t on the ground!"
Thankfully, she didn’t listen to them and started living separately in an apartment and after three years of court cases, she finally, legally got divorced.
Yet, like Aditi, most women in India don't have the opportunity to break free from society's shackles.
A lot of them get married before they can finish high school, and with little education and societal conditioning, it's hard for them to even realize that what's happening to them is wrong.
Even when they realise what’s happening to them is wrong, they don’t want to leave their husbands.
Why?
Because isn’t it a woman’s duty to be with her husband no matter what?
Only 1% of Indian marriages end up in a divorce. While this fact is often stated proudly by many Indians, what they fail to understand is that the divorce rate isn't low because every marriage in India is successful.
It's not.
Two people living in an abusive or loveless marriage isn't a successful marriage and shouldn't be considered one.
This inequality and discrimination against women starts before they’re even born.
It is estimated that more than 21 million girls in India are considered "unwanted" and more than 63 million are "missing."
"Missing women" refers to the number of women who should be present in a population but are not due to female foeticide and infanticide.
The Indian Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen first coined the term "missing women" in an essay in The New York Review of Books in 1990. Sen has estimated that more than 100 million women are "missing" or "gone."
Determining the sex of a fetus and female- selective abortions are illegal in India, and campaigns like "Beti Bachao Beti Padhao" (Save daughter, educate daughter) aim to prevent female foeticide, but they’re still prevalent.
What is even more baffling is that educated individuals are more likely to seek female-selective abortions.
Countless women in India face these complex problems, and for situations like these, we need complex solutions.
Initiatives on awareness alone can’t improve the mindset of the people in this country. Along with increased awareness, we also need quality education, safer workspaces (so women feel encouraged to work), better worker rights and countless other things.
In our personal lives, we should encourage women around us to be financially independent and to obtain better education.
Societal change is slow, but this shouldn’t stop us from trying our best. Our society through the efforts of the informed IS changing and it’s our responsibility to continue the change.
Email me on- writes.divya@gmail.com
