ABOUT THE GENDER SENSITIVITY ISSUES THAT THE WOMEN ARE FACING. IT DESCRIBES THOSE ASPECTS...

2.  Gender consciousness is everywhere.
 We enforce gender specific roles consciously or
unconsciously.
Ex – when we console a crying boy by saying
‘don’t cry like a girl’ -we are doing gender bias.
 That is , we are expecting and at the same time
imposing different sets of values on the basis of
sex. Gender influence, how we think, act, feel
and communicate.

3.  Gender :
 The difference between women and men within
the same household and within and between
cultures that are socially and culturally
constructed and change over time.
 These difference are reflected in roles,
responsibilities,access to resources, constraints,
opportunities, needs, perceptions, view etc . held
by both women and men. ( Moser C. 1993)

4. Gender Bias –
 Actions against women or men based on the
perceptions that the other sex is not equal
and does not have the same rights

5. Gender equality :
 A term which reflects an equal sharing of
power between women and men, in their
equal access to education, health,
administrative and managerial positions,
equally pay for work and equal pay for work
of equal value and equal seats in parliament
among others.

6.  The pairing of the two concepts of women‘s
empowerment and gender equality into one,
implicitly recognizes that gender equality
and women‘s empowerment are two sides of
the same coin.
 Progress toward gender equality requires
women‘s empowerment and women‘s
empowerment requires increases in gender
equality

7.  Ultrasound tests are being widely used for sex
selection, with sex selection being more evident for the
wealthiest women.
 Couples typically stop having children once they have
the desired number of sons.

8. Children’s school attendance:
school attendance of female child is very less in
our country

9. Literacy and educational attainment among
adults:
 Gender disparity in literacy is much greater
in rural areas
 Forty-one percent of women between age
15-49 have never been to school.

10.  The average age at marriage for women is only
18 years.
 16% of married women age 15-49 are married to
men who are 10 or more years older than them.

11.  Men are doing job and earning for the
livelihood, women are looking after the
household and children, but now this
scenario is changing slowly

12.  Women’s freedom of movement is severely
hindered: many are not allowed to go alone to
the market, the health centre, and outside the
community.
 A majority of women do not have any money of
their own that they can use as they wish.

13.  Although most men believe that husbands and
wives should make decisions jointly, but it is yet
the husband who has the major say in most
decisions

14.  Participation in decision making in household is
less among the females than males

15.  About two in five currently married women
have experienced spousal violence in their
current marriage.

16.  Women empowerment in simple words can
be understood as giving power to women to
decide for their own lives or inculcating such
abilities in them so that they could be able
to find their rightful place in the society

17.  According to UNITED NATIONS, women
empowerment has five components;
1. generating women’s sense of self worth
2.Womens right to have and to determine their choices
3.Womens right to have or access to equal
opportunities and all kinds of resources
4. Women’s right to have the power to regulate and
control their own lives, within and outside the home
5. Women’s ability to contribute in creating a more
social and economic order

19.  The MDG’s centred towards promoting gender equality
and empowering women: “Eliminate gender disparity
in primary and secondary education, preferably by
2005, and in all levels of education by no later than
2015”.
 The Government of India MDG Report 2009 notes,
“participation of women in employment and decision-
making remains far less than that of men, and the
disparity is not likely to be eliminated by 2015.”.

20.  To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
 To achieve universal primary education
 To promote gender equality and empower
women
 To reduce child mortality
 To improve maternal health
 To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
 To ensure environmental sustainability
 To develop a global partnership of development

21.  The Ministry for Women & Child Development was
established as a department of the Ministry of Human
Resource Development in the year 1985 to drive the holistic
development of women and children in the country.
 In 2006 this department was given the status of a Ministry,
with the powers to:-
 Formulate plans, policies and programmes; enacts/ amends
legislation, guiding and coordinating the efforts of both
governmental and non-governmental organisations working in
the field of Women and Child Development.

22.  The Ministry is also implementing the Swayamsidha
programme – an integrated scheme for the empowerment of
women.
 Core to this programme will be the establishment of
women’s self-help groups which will empower women to
have increased access to all kinds of resources, in addition
to increasing their awareness and skills.
 This programme will benefit about 9,30,000 women with
the setting up of 53,000 self-help groups, 26,500 village
societies and 650 block societies.

23.  The National Commission for Women is a
Department within the Ministry of Women and Child
Development.
 It was set up exclusively to help women – by
reviewing Legal and Constitutional safeguards for
women, recommending remedial legislative
measures, by facilitating quick redressal of
grievances and by advising the Government of India
on all policy matters affecting women.

24.  The Women’s Bill in April 2010, which gives 33.3%
reservation for women in all levels of Indian politics,
took 14 years after its introduction to finally pass by
the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of parliament).
 The reservation bill will ensure 181 out of the 543
seats at the Parliament level
 Currently women occupy less than 10% of seats in the
national Parliament.

25.  Launched on January 22, 2015.
 It aims to generate awareness and also improve the
efficiency of welfare services for the girl child.
 The aim of the campaign was to address the
declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR), gender-biased
sex-selective eliminations, propagating education,
survival, and protection of the girl child.

26.  Under the Ministry of Women and Child Development,
the government launched Mahila-E-Haat in 2016.
 It is a online marketing platform that has technology to
help aspiring women entrepreneurs, self-help groups,
and NGOs to showcase their products and services.

27.  The government launched the Mahila Shakti
Kendra in 2017
 Aim is to empower rural women with
opportunities for skill development, employment,
digital literacy, health and nutrition.

28.  The government launched the Working Women
Hostels to ensure availability of safe, convenient
accommodation for working family, along with
daycare facilities for their children, wherever
possible in urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

29.  STEP Scheme will be available in any sector for
imparting skills related to employability and
entrepreneurship in agriculture, horticulture, food
processing, handlooms, tailoring, stitching,
embroidery, handicrafts, computers and IT-
enabled services along with soft skills and skills
for the workplace, such as spoken English, gems
and jewellery, travel and tourism, and hospitality.

30. Formulation of many specific laws in order to protect the
rights of women;
 The equal remuneration act, 1976
 The Dowry prohibition act, 1961
 The immoral Traffic ( Prevention) act, 1956
 The maternity benefit act, 1961
 The medical termination of pregnancy act, 1971
 The prohibition of child marriage act, 2006
 The pre conception and Pre natal diagnostic
techniques act 1994
 The sexual Harassment of women at work place act,
2013

31.  To truly understand what is women empowerment, there
needs to be a sea-change in the mind-set of the people
in the country. Not just the women themselves, but the
men have to wake up to a world that is moving towards
equality and equity. It is better that this is embraced
earlier rather than later, for our own good.
 We have a long way to go, but we will get there
someday.

32. Thank you