Suffrage to suffer-age

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Suffrage to suffer-age

Sunday, 29 December 2019 | Ranjana Kumari

Suffrage to suffer-age

From the time when women didn’t have the right to vote, to only 78 women parliamentarians in India, the country has still a long way to go before they can be fully empowered

Women’s suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Most countries enacted women’s suffrage in the first half of the 20th century. New Zealand was the first to grant women such a right. The movement actually began in 1848, when a women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. The movement made other rights possible for women. By the early 20th century, women were able to attend college and to train for professions, although not in the same numbers as men. They began to enter male-dominated professions like law, medicine, clergy and corporate. In the aftermath of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, women’s economic roles increased in society. Since there was more educational opportunities for women it led more and more women to sense their potential for meaningful professional careers. Also women's salaries increased but not to the amount that men received. However, this still was a huge success for women because it was such a big step from what it had been before.

India granted voting rights as it gained Independence, whereby not just general but also special rights were granted to them just like other oppressed sections in India.

 Here one needs to discuss the shift from suffrage movement to movement for inclusion in actual politics in India. The conventional Indian and worldwide political wisdom says that women are less interested and engaged in politics than men. Major explanations for this so-called gender gap were women’s lower access to socioeconomic resources. For example, men are more likely to be full-time employed than women, and employment is positively related to political participation.This is a global perception.

Women also tend to have fewer political resources and be less likely to be politically engaged and interested which has been related to women’s socialisation toward a gender role that is more passive, private, rule-abiding and compassionate, while men get opportunities to orient toward leadership, public roles, autonomy and self-reliance. Women were found to be less likely to demonstrate, attend political meetings, contact a politician or be a party member than men, but more likely to sign a petition, boycott products for ethical reasons and donate funds. That is because they have private sphere i.e. family responsibility. In Indian culture there is no concept of co-parenting.

Moving on from right to vote to active participation, one domain of the formal politics that has recent years seen surge in active and effective participation of women has been the Panchayati raj and local body institutions, where it has been constitutionally mandated for reservation of seats for female candidates.

 While there have been many positive cases of women panchayat sarpanch taking stand on issue but still in many States they remain rubber stamps for husband. In past few years, the involvement of women parliamentarians raising and fighting for women rights issues is dismal. This will continue as long as women are dependent for their political future on make party noes. There has to be substantial number of women in Parliament, like in local  institutions, providing voice to women to sway decision favouring gender equality in male dominated Parliament and State Assemblies.

Therefore , It is of utter importance that sufficient affirmative action is provided in form of constitutional reforms to achieve gender balance in the Parliament, enabling women to engage in legislative processes and have greater voice in the active nation building

Male dominance of the most prestigious (parliamentary) committees reinforces the de facto gendering of politics as masculine. Thus the need for women to be involved in politics. There is need of sufficient number of women to raise issues related to them, India for example still battling with domestic violence, sexual assault and marital rape and  under representation in politics.

So the question arises that how can that be done. How women can be adequately represented in Parliament?

Female political participation has been a cause of concern and continues to be the unfinished agend of the previous century. While some countries have managed to combat factors that prevent women from entering the political arena, others continue to struggle to this day.

The various factors that have been a cause for under representation include structural, political and ideological factors. The reason why some countries have achieved gender-balanced politics is because of the role played by political parties, women’s mass movements, socio-cultural support for women in politics, and the upheaval of political systems. These conditions have enabled the adoption and implementation of quotas and reservations successfully. It is important for countries to improve their gender-balance in politics, because it has been proven that an increased number of women in politics impacts education and health indicators.

In a country like India, it is important to adopt a multi-pronged approach when it comes to increasing women representation. Not only do political parties need to step up their efforts to increase intra-party representation, but civil society organisation and the general public need to unite together to form a cohesive mass women’s movement to demand political equality. Only when all sectors of the society unite will women attain political equality.

Real democracy is a democracy where women do not just have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected. Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights. In the end one would like to say women of India have nothing to lose but their chains and their fight will continue in 21st century.

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