Essential Questions

Questions that I posed before my trip and after the intensive preparatory course centered mostly around gender equality in India.

• How does cultural/historical/religious tradition inform gender equality?
• How is the government implementing laws and regulations that are aimed towards leveling the playing field?
• How do Indian women in varying situations feel about their roles?
• Do younger women feel more empowered? Does this differ between urban and rural areas?
• How do curricular agendas impact gender equality?
• How great is the difference in gender equality between castes/classes?

Assumptions:

• Urban environments are more conducive to advancements in gender equality
• Attitudes towards women are culturally reinforced
• Attitudes are difficult to change
• Many women are demanding change
• Many others accept their roles

Tools I used for research:

• an investigation of Indian laws regarding hiring property ownership, inheritance, dowry practice
• polls conducted nationally in India
• observations, conversations with women in different environments
• observations, survey of curricula, conversations with teachers'
• study of the actual changes since the abolishment of the caste system; observation

Essential Question Essay

India is a vast country with twenty-eight states and union territories, each one different in may ways from the other, so generalizations about gender equality may be inappropriate. One generalization that I heard often was the southern region of India is more favorable towards the empowerment of women and more advanced in terms of societal acceptance of women as equals to men; at the same time however, a 
recentTrustLaw poll pf G20 countries shows that even in southern states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh, incidents of domestic violence against women reported on the survey are more frequent than those reported to the police. This is attributable to lack of effective police response. Overall, India ranks 105 among 135 countries according to the 2012Pew Global Gender Gap Report. This is up from 113^th place in 2011, mainly due to improvements in women's educational attainment and political empowerment . On the other hand, it ranks very low in terms of women's participation in the economy and the “health and survival” category, brought down by the numeric disparity between male and female live births. Interestingly enough, female infanticide or foeticide (the deliberate termination of pregnancies because of gender) seems to be more prevalent among wealthier Indians, meaning that there are much greater chances for boys to be raised in more comfortable and privileged conditions than there are for girls.

Women who are employed mostly work due to financial necessity; they earn about 60% of what men do for similar jobs, and only about 35% of women are in the work force. There are no numbers available for women employed in high level positions or as professional and technical workers. Although the rate of girls enrolled in elementary school is high compared to boys (practically equal) the numbers drop off considerably by the time they reach secondary school. There are a number of reasons for this: most Indians, according to the survey, feel that education for boys is more important than for girls, so if families need financial support at home, they will be more likely to pull a daughter than a son out of school so she can work. Another reason is that in many schools (and I experienced this myself in a Bangalore government school we visited) there is only one bathroom, with absolutely no accommodations made for girls who are undergoing menses. In areas where water is scarce, girls are expected to fetch water in containers from government tanks, and this could take up several hours a day. Although marriage for girls is illegal under 16 years of age, there are still areas where girls are married very young, truncating their school career.

Attitudes are slow to change, although there are NGOs at work such as the TeacherFoundation, which includes the importance of female literacy as part of its training. As one Teacher Foundation staffer expressed it, female literacy is “the single most important factor in Indian economic growth.” At least half the potential talent pool in India is left mostly idle, which ultimately will make India less competitive, unless women's education and inclusion in the workforce is accepted much more widely than it is now. Another organization, the Institute of Human Rights Education¹, working with other human rights-oriented NGOs, combats violence towards women as part of its agenda.

In classrooms, girls and boys sit on opposite sides of the room, only sitting on the same side if there is a majority of one gender (in the upper grades usually boys). In one science class I observed (5^th grade at the elementary branch of the same government school I mentioned before) the male teacher was asking, in the Kannada language, review questions, the majority of which were addressed to boys. Although occasionally a girl would raise her hand to answer, almost all students called upon were male. This to me reflects the mentality that education for boys is essential, but negligible for girls.

Conversely, at the private school I was assigned to in Hyderabad, the gap between consideration of male and female students seemed far more reduced. The first day I was there, a science fair was being held at various grade levels, and there seemed to be a fairly equal number of presentations by female students compared to male students, with the same levels of confidence and knowledge. When I asked the 7^th and 8^th grade students whether they felt that women in India had attained the same levels as men in education and in terms of opportunities, they overwhelmingly responded that inequality was a thing of the past – for them, even though boys occasionally booed the girls. They acknowledged that in some parts of the country, above all rural areas, conditions for women were still “backward.” When I spoke with a class of Standard 11 students, boys were far more outspoken in our discussion comparing American and Indian education, and girls were far more reserved. One girl asked me after class, however, about ways to improve her SAT scores, as she wished to apply to an American college.

The majority of teachers at the school are women; I found out that the average salary for a teacher there was equivalent to a year's tuition per student, which I thought meant that teachers couldn't send their own children to the school. However, since I met at least two teachers who introduced me to their student children, it seemed that they may have a steep discount. Since there is no government provision for daycare by law, this may be an employer initiative to aid female teachers. Even in Hyderabad, social life appears to be very hierarchical. even though the caste system was abolished long ago. There was a group of uniformed women at Jubilee Hills Public School who performed the cleaning, serving and other custodial duties in the school. What was unusual for me was not their presence, but rather the way in which they were treated and the deference with which they behaved towards everyone else. Teachers and administrators were dismissive, giving these “custodians” peremptory orders; otherwise they were more or less “invisible.” They themselves seemed to accept their lowly station for the most part, and were startled when in return for many days of their bringing me tea and snacks, I offered them gifts and candy. It seemed that these women were of the former “untouchable” caste; the caste system, like attitudes towards women, seems slow to change completely.

Education in India is faced by these and other challenges, such as the frowned-upon but continuing use of corporal punishment, the difficulty of communication among the states, which would like to preserve traditional languages but cannot communicate effectively without relying on English (an idiom that unites, but also places traditional values and customs at risk) and the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. Along with progress in these areas, I believe that changes are being made towards forging new attitudes towards women, especially since many male students are learning the essential value of an equal place for women in society.

¹Bajaj, M. Schooling for Social Change. Continuum, New York: 2012