Feminism and Rights of Women!
The feminist movement focuses on rights and roles of women. Three ideological propositions on feminism are: liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, and radical feminism. The liberal feminism believes in gender equality and rejects subordination of one sex by the other or treating women as sex objects instead of human beings. However, it does not challenge the division of labour on sex basis. It holds that woman is best suited for family roles and man for outside roles.
Marxist feminism explains women’s subordination as the result of emergence of private property and ownership of means of production. Unlike men, women’s work has a ‘use’ value but not ‘exchange’ value. Men, therefore, hold more power than women and oppression of women is due to the unpaid home work. Radical feminism though believes in sexual equality yet rejects traditional division of labour.
It holds that gender roles are not only the result of biological factors but also the product of culture. It believes in free sex and collective childcare. Thus, when Marxist feminism gave a deterministic orientation to women’s oppression, radical feminism gave a humanistic orientation.
In a society where about half of the total population of about 100 crore (1999) and about half of the females are illiterate (at the beginning of 1998), according to the latest data based on National Sample Survey organisation, (the female literacy figure having gone up from 39% in 1991 to more than 49% by the end of 1997) (The Hindustan Times, December 26, 1998), what rights have been assured to women through various social laws?
The Indian Constitution provides to women the right to equality, freedom, property, education, constitutional remedies, and protection from exploitation. The state has also been enacting special laws for safeguarding the interests of women. In the social field, these laws relate to various aspects of marriage (like, mate selection, age at marriage, plurality of partners, divorce, alimony, dowry, restitution of conjugal rights, and remarriage), adoption of children and abortion.
The economic laws pertain to: right to property or inheritance, equal wages, working conditions, maternity benefits, and job security. The political rights provided to women are: female enfranchisement and eligibility for the legislature.
Are women conscious of these rights? Do they actually enjoy these rights? My empirical study conducted among 753 women of 18-50 years age group in eight villages of one district in Rajasthan about a decade ago revealed that though the level of awareness depends upon four factors— woman’s individual background, her social environment, her subjective perception, and her economic base-—yet by and large, the level of awareness is very low (Ahuja, 1992).
Though we do not hold that the awareness of rights ipso facto raises women’s status yet we do raise a question that if males deny due rights to women because either women tolerate it and do not revolt, or because no punishment is given to the violators of the social laws, or because the advantages of denying rights out-weigh the costs, how do we break this cycle of injustice on the part of males? How do we protect the interests of women? What programmes and policies will make males liberal and just? The remedies appear to be legal, social, and economic.
Women’s movements and some measures taken by the government give us a feeling that some structural and cultural changes have been brought about as a result of which women have been provided equality of opportunities in education, employment, and political participation. Further, these changes have reduced their exploitation, and oriented them to develop organisations which take keen interest in their problems. But the fact of the matter is that these changes are only cosmetic and superficial, and in actual practice, due rights are denied to women and they continue to be victims of male domination.
The reasons for the denial of rights may be related to individual, economic and demographic factors. The individual factors refer to the personality characteristics of those males who possess low intellectual ability (IQ), who suffer from immaturity, depression and frustrations, who are alcoholics, or who have unrealistically high expectations from women and expect them to remain docile and passive.
As regards the economic factors, non-earning women are more frequently denied rights than earning women; women in the low and middle-income families are more generally denied rights than the upper-income families; and among earning women, those engaged in non-professional or low status jobs enjoy fewer rights than those engaged in professions or high status jobs.
Lastly, as regards the demographic factors, women in the upper castes are not so frequently denied rights as compared to women in the intermediate or the lower castes; the older males deny rights to women more generally than the younger males; and rights denied by women to women are more common than the rights denied by men to women.
We can also identify males who deny rights to women. These men are those who have depressions, inferiority complex and low esteem; lack resources, that is, have personality disorders; have possessive, suspicious and domineering nature; were victims of violence in their own childhood; and face stressful situations in their families.
Further, women who are denied rights most may be identified as those who have feelings of helplessness, suffer from inferiority complex, have poor self-image, lack social maturity, and are economically dependent. We may also identify six types of denials of rights: money-oriented, pleasure-oriented, power- oriented, victim-precipitated, deniar’s pathology-resulted, and stressful family situations-resulted.