gender related issues DowryIssues workplacediscrimination-B.Ed. women empowerment

1. UNIT-3 A.- GENDER
RELATED ISSUES IN
SOCIETY
By:
Dr. Rakhi
Sawlani

2. DOWRY
DARK SIDE OF INDIAN WEDDINGS
Etymological meaning of dowry:
The Latin word dotare is the root of dowry, and it means "to endow or to
portion out."
Meaning of Dowry:
In some cultures, the bride or her family pays a certain amount of money or
property to the groom when a couple is married. This payment is called a
dowry.
Origin of the custom
• to assure financial stability for their daughters.
• The jewelry and cash that a bride brought with her from her parents’ house
was referred to as “Streedhan”

4. FEATURES OF THE DOWRY
SYSTEM...
• still prevalent in the 21st century
• in both subtle and obvious ways
• crudest expression of male-dominance in the
society
• asserts the belief that the girl’s family is inferior in
standing with the boy’s family, no matter what her
qualities are.

5. CAUSES
• Greed Factor
• Societal Structure
• Religious Dictates (Propulsion Towards Adhering to Customs)
• Social Constraints
• Low Social Status of women
• Social Customs
• A false notion of prestige
• Illiteracy

6. EFFECTS
• Injustice towards girls
• Violence against women
• Economic burden
• Gender inequality
• Gender imbalance
• Loss of Self-esteem
• Low status of Women

7. MEASURES TO ERADICATE GENDER
RELATED ISSUE- DOWRY SYSTEM
Law
• The Dowry Prohibition Act was passed on 20th May, 1961
• Aim: to eradicate the evil practice from the society.
• The act declares not only the practice of accepting dowry unlawful, but also
penalizes giving of the same.
• It includes property, valuable security like cash and jewelry exchanging
during the marriage.
• Making demands of dowry is punishable by a minimum imprisonment of 5
years and a minimum fine of 15,000 rupees.
• Incidences of cruelty by the husband or his family against the wife have been
addressed in the Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code and Section 198A in
the Criminal Procedure Code.
• Section 113A added in the Indian Evidence Act further provides the family of
the bride to charge the husband’s family of abetting suicide of their daughter
within 7 years from the date of marriage.

8. CONTD..
Enforcement–
• Strict and ruthless enforcement of such laws.
• lack of proper investigative procedures often leads to the accused
going free.
• The government needs to ensure a zero-tolerance policy for such
offenders.
Social Awareness–
• Creating a widespread awareness against the evils of the dowry
system
• Campaigns to spread knowledge about the legal provisions against
dowry.

9. EDUCATION, EMPOWERMENT AND
SELF-DEPENDENCE OF WOMEN
• Essential to gain eyes and ears to a world beyond the one you can
immediately see.
• Will get knowledge of their rights
• Enable them to speak up against practice of dowry and ongoing
marginalization.
• They will also be able to strive for self-dependence and not view marriage
as their only salvation .
• Overhaul of mindsets is needed
• To push back against the iniquitous custom of dowry.
• They need to realise the fact that in today’s society women are perfectly
capable of doing
anything that men can.

10. WORKPLACE
DISCRIMINATION

11. WORK PLACE DISCRIMINATION -
DEFINITION
The prejudicial or unjust treatment of certain
categories of people especially on the grounds of
sex, sexual orientation, race or age.
The unfair treatment of a person based on his or
her gender especially against women is called as
gender discrimination. Discrimination on the
basis of sex especially the oppression of women
by men.
It is a common problem in India and its outcomes
are disastrous for country.

12. THE HARD FACTS…
• The gender pay gap in India for the year 2013 was recorded at 24.81% by
Wage indicator and a curious stat is that this gap increases with age.
• Women below the age of 30 earned 23.07% less than men, while those in
the age group of 30-40 years earned 30.24% less than men.
• There's a clear gap in growth charts in a career for a man and woman in
India. Surprisingly, educational qualifications also end up increasing this wage
gap.
• There is a dearth of women in key and senior leadership positions in India.
• One of the biggest reasons why women occupy fewer leadership positions is
the lack of support after marriage, both professionally and domestically.
• Although times are evolving and there are even cases of women being the
"bread-winners“ and men the "home-makers", women are still subtly
pressured to make professional compromises for the family.
• Biases in performance appraisals and difficult work-life balance choices
make these issues much more challenging.
• Wider power structures that impede this equality are ignored by
organizations.

14. DIFFERENT FORMS
DISCRIMINATION
AT WORK PLACE
1. Age Discrimination - An organisation may prefer younger candidates as
potential employees to employees in their middle ages, just because
younger employees are more likely to work for a lesser pay. This age
discrimination in the workplace may even be put into practice while
terminating employees.
2. Personality Discrimination - Companies may also refuse to recruit or
mistreat employees just because they are not good-looking and do not
have a pleasing personality, irrespective of their skill sets. Some
organizations may even reject job applicants who are obese or disabled.
3. Gender Discrimination - Gender discrimination in the workplace means
the employer gives importance to the employee's gender, rather than skill,
while deciding on the pay, promotion, and work responsibilities.

15. CONTD..
4. GENDER PAY-GAP - unequal pay between both genders.
5. GENDER DISCRIMINATION AT ENTRY LEVEL - obstacles
experienced by women during job recruitment. Women are not
allowed to progress even if they are talented to they are kept at
the entry level jobs by the employers.
6. GENDER ADVANCEMENT GAP - The men are often rewarded
with higher incentives and salaries as compared to women, but it
is to be noted that the women in several cases have proved to be
more deserving and hardworking and deserve a better position in
the area of workplace. Promotion are generally handed to the
male employees as they are expected to be more responsible and
capable of handling the job which might be a debatable question
as nowadays women are better off as compared to the men at top

16. CONTD..
7. SEXUAL HARASSMENT - The most severe form in which
this discrimination occurs is sexual harassment. Bullying
employees and delegating office work which might not
cover the specialization of the concerned employee.
8. MARITAL STATUS DISCRIMINATION takes place when the
employer takes decisions about employment while
considering whether the person is married, living alone,
divorced, or widowed.
Researches has stated that in workplaces men and women
who are generally involved with the other sex are judged
more harshly when they commit mistakes.

17. MEASURES TO ELIMINATE GENDER
DISCRIMINATION AT THE
WORKPLACE
Important legislation for gender-basedissues at workplace:
Equal Remuneration Act of 1976, India
• There should be payment of equal remuneration whether in
cash or kind to men and women workers for same or similar
nature of work protected under the Act.
• It also provides that the employers must not discriminate on
the basis of sex in the recruitment of workers for the same or
similar work, or in any terms or conditions of employment, such
as promotion, training or transfer.

18. ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL LABOUR
ORGANIZATION (ILO)
• The only tripartite U.N. agency, since 1919 the ILO brings together
governments, employers and workers of 187 member States , to set
labour standards, develop policies and devise programmes promoting
decent work for all women and men.
• The primary objective of the ILO is to promote the opportunities for
women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions
of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.
• Decent work is the converging focus of the four strategic objectives,
namely rights at work, greater employment and income opportunities,
social protection and social dialogue.
• India is a founder member of the International Labour Organization,
which came into existence in 1919. At present the ILO has 186
Members.

19. LABOUR ORGANISATIONS IN INDIA
All india labour employment union
Employers federation of india
ESI Corporation
Society for labour and development
AIFLU
All india organisation of employers
Ministry of labour and employment - The Ministry of Labour & Employment
is one of the oldest and important Ministries of the Government of India. The
main responsibility of the Ministry is to protect and safeguard the interests
of workers in general and those who constitute the poor, deprived and
disadvantage sections of the society.
BMS is the largest trade union of India. The firm or industry level trade
unions are often affiliated to larger Federations. The largest Federations in
the country represent labour at the National level and are known as Central
Trade Union Organisations (CTUO).

20. HOW TO OVERCOME THIS
PROBLEM ?
When countries are able to raise the female labor participation
rate, this stands to benefit the entire economy.
Apart from potential GDP growth, equal employment
opportunities for women could also result in increased growth
and profitability in the private sector.
It is also important to note that women in India perform 9.8
times the amount of labor in the unpaid sector either through
household duties or care work.
If this work was measured and valued, it was estimated by
McKinsey that it would contribute 0.3 trillion dollars to India’s
total economic output.

21. MEASURES TO ELIMINATE GENDER
DISCRIMINATION AT THE
WORKPLACE
• To shape and mould an equal hierarchical structure, it's
important to change mind-sets of individuals within
organizations.
• Mechanisms must be promoted to address patriarchal biases.
• Policies must be established to abolish gender inequalities in
the workplace.
• A free space for dialogue should be created where employees
can speak about
discriminations they face while working in an organization.
•Women at leadership.

22. WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
Women Empowerment refers to increase the social,
political & economic strength of the women
in different ways.
Having decision making power of their own.
Political participation.
Awareness and exercise of their rights.
Self decision regarding education, participation, mobility & economic
independency. “ The government of India declared 2001 as the year of
women’s empowerment(Swashakti).”

23. EDUCATIONAL EMPOWERMENT
Girl’s enrolment at the primary and secondary level has been improved
after independence. Year 1950-51 2004-05 % enrolment in primary 28.1
46.7 % enrolment in secondary 61.1 44.4
Government has started some schemes to foster the growth of female
education.
e.g.
Mahila Samakhya Programme
Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme
National educational programme for girls at primary level

24. SOCIO-ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
There is a scheme known as Indira Awas Yojna
through which govt. gives money to women to make
their home.
In many govt. give money to girl at the time of their
marriage.
Govt. give loan to women to start their own business
at very low interest.
In spite of all these schemes the social & economic
status of women is not improved at desired extent.

25. CONTD..
Political Empowerment
There is 33.5% reservation for women in local government bodies.
This law has placed a million of women in elected positions to the
panchayat in the country. Govt. also encouraging the women to vote
in the various elections.
Indira Gandhi former Indian prime minister is the world’s largest
serving women prime minister. In spite of all these steps taken by
govt. Still there are very few women in national level politics.

26. SELF HELP GROUP EMPOWERMENT
Apart from government bodies many non
governmental bodies are also working for
empowerment of women in various aspects.
Some of these areMahila Seva Samiti Nari Seva Sangha
Women Coordinating Council Satya Bharati Shakti-
Shalini Nari Raksha Samiti Maitri Shakti-Vahini Navjyoti
These bodies are working to help women for different
problems and also protest for women’s right.