The document discusses the complexities of women's freedom and equality in India, questioning whether women truly enjoy the rights guaranteed by the constitution amidst pervasive issues like domestic violence, dowry, and workplace harassment. It highlights that not only are women unequal, but they also face numerous societal challenges that reinforce their subordinate status. The conclusion calls for a broader transformation of societal structures to ensure equality for all marginalized groups, especially women.

1. Women in India
How free?
How equal?

2. Women’s freedom and equality
• At some time or the other, we have all heard the
comment, ‘Gender is a Western concept. We don’t
need it in India’. A number of arguments are used to
justify this stand. we are told that India is the original
home of the Mother Goddess.
• We are proud of the fact that India was one of the
first countries in the world to give women the right to
vote. The Indian Constitution is one of the most
progressive in the world, and guarantees equal rights
for men and women. All this is cited as evidence to
support the contention that Indian women are free
and equal members of society.

3. Some questions:
• What do freedom and equality mean to women in India?
• Can they exercise their right to live with dignity?
• Do they have the freedom to develop their potential and choose
what they should do or be?
• Can they acquire knowledge, be creative and productive and live
long and healthy lives?
• Are they protected form the major sources of unfreedom – from
violence, discrimination, want, fear and injustice?
• Do they enjoy the same chances and choices as men, equally and
on the same terms?
• In essence, how free are Indian women? How equal are they to
men?
Unfortunately these questions do not have simple and straightforward
answers

4. Legal definition of rape
‘’Sexual penetration without the individual’s consent,
obtained by force or threat of physical harm, or when
a victim is incapable of giving consent’’.
Related, broader term: sexual assault
•Sexual touching and other unwanted forms of
sexual contact
•Accompanied by psychological pressure or
physical threat

5. ACUTE PHASE LONG TERM
•Few days-weeks
• Few months-?
•Fear, anxiety,
self-blame, • Phobias, sexual problems,
•Dis-trust, self- depression, lifestyle changes
doubt
•Denial,
disrupted
patterns
•Cognitive &
physiological
symptoms

6. Molestation
• Molestation is also referred to as sexual
abuse, is the forcing of undesired sexual
behaviour by one person upon another.
• When that force is immediate, of short
duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual
assault.

7. Workplace Molestation
• Work place molestation (or sexual harassment) is a
crime.
• One way to combat work place molestation is to report
all incidents of it to the authorities.
• Don’t be afraid to report work place molestation
incidents for fear of losing your job.
• Never feel like you are responsible for their
inappropriate behaviour.
• Work place molestation is something you are responsible
for reporting. If you are the victim of such harassment
ensure you approach someone in authority who can take
charge of the situation and either warn the offender or
punish them.

8. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
 Violence between family members
 Often in private
 Historically accepted >> until 1980’s
Intimate partner violence
 Living together or separated
 Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) measures how
person resolves conflict
 Widely used to assess domestic violence
 Range from constructive problem solving to
physical aggression
 How often experienced, how often engaged in

9. Theories of Intimate Violence
1. Patriarchy (1970) (Dobash & Dobash, 1979)
 Broad set of cultural beliefs and values that
support male domination over women.
 Social & familial (Smith, 1990)
 Influences people’s expectations about
authority within an intimate relationship.

10. Measures for domestic violence
• Foremost is girls parents should be
supportive.
• Government should support NGO’s which
takes care of such women’s cases.
• Education is must, literacy rate should
increase, so that women who become victim
of such situations can save themselves.
Moreover education will effect men’s
mentality who commits such crimes.

11. DOWRY
• Dowry is seen as a crime in India but many
people still give the groom’s family some of it
so that their daughter are not harassed after
the marriage
• Bride-Burning is a form of domestic violence, a
category of dowry death. It is occurred when
the women refuses to give additional dowry.

12. • Dowry Prohibition Act was passed in 1961.
• According to the act if a person gives or takes
dowry or direct and indirect demands to the
wife and her family is liable to get punished
and imprisoned for 6 months and also pay a
fine of Rs.5000
• Imprisonment can extend to 2 years and fine
and fine to Rs.10,000.

13. MEAURES FOR SAFETY OF WOMAN
• Encouragement of the nurturance of the
women spirit and identity reflected in the
awareness of and the preservation of women’s
cultural heritage for future generations
• Women must learn to understand economics
and how to make money. This will enable us to
be financially self sufficient and therefore
economically independent of men.

14. • To liberate themselves, women must stop
selling out their identities as women by
rejecting restrictive gender roles, stereotypes
and by claiming all territory as women’s
territory
• Concept of sisterhood wherein women share
personal concerns and common unity based
on their understanding and love for
themselves and other women

15. • Violence against women within the families is
justified as being necessary to establish men’s
authority over women, to ‘discipline’ them and
to punish them for dereliction of duty.
• Women are not a homogenous group –
women belonging to privileged and dominant
classes and castes enjoy many freedoms and
opportunities that are denied to men from
subordinate and disprivileged groups.

16. CONCLUSION
• Gender inequality is not the only inequality in
India – women are unfree and unequal, but so
are dalits, members of subordinate castes and
communities, landless people, displaced people,
migrants, the homeless, disabled people and
many other groups.
• Women are at the bottom of the pile in every
one of these groups – the ‘last man’ in Gandhiji’s
talisman, the poorest and most powerless
individual, is actually a woman.

17. • Equality of freedoms and opportunities for this
‘last woman' can come about only through
transformation in all structures and systems
that generate and perpetuate inequalities – a
transformation that would benefit every other
subordinate group in society.

18. GROUP MEMBERS
• Ankita Divyangana
• Manjusha Rhea
• Anchal Isis
• Pulkit Garg Atul
• Sanchita Sugandha
• Neha