MillenniumPost
Opinion

Gaping gap

The gender gap in India is improving at a snail’s pace, robbing a half of her population of better lives and livelihoods

Gaping gap
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A friend and I were discussing how today we celebrate mediocracy. Everyone is doing everything; everyone seems good at everything. No specialists, no over-achievers, just a staid group of mediocrity. You know there was a time when meritocracy was the buzzword; today it's the former. Now don't get me wrong, children do need encouragement. In their formative years, excessive criticism, neglect of even minor achievements, and aggressive shoving towards ambition — can have a detrimental effect on young minds, which may hamper their development. Emotionally scarred childhoods seldom make for strong, confident adults sans counselling. So, yes, kids need all the encouragement and boosting of morale that they can get. But once you transition into an adult be prepared to hear some harsh words of criticism.

Today, an eternal optimism is running around us. Everyone seems to be 'manifesting', spewing 'gratitude', and 'heart'-ing all things...all perfectly nice, most of it fake, but generally harmless. But there must come a time, when we need to take a hard look at where we are and not celebrate mediocrity. We need to slam a few things around, if we need a shakedown!

I write this with the passion that comes from carrying the burden and responsibility of being a woman. It's been 75 years since India gained her independence, and by all counts we still seem to be failing one half of our population. The gender gap in India is still a gaping wound that refuses to heal. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), we ranked 140 out of 156 countries in 2021 and improved only marginally in the latest Global Gender Gap Report by dropping 5 spots to an equally embarrassing 135 out of 146 nations! We are just 11 places better than Taliban-controlled Afghanistan! Therefore, let's not celebrate mediocrity when in 2016 we were at the 87th position; so, by all assessment, we have been repeatedly failing this particular examination.

India also performs miserably on the counts of health and survival, coming in last in the Gender Gap Report sub-indices. There now exists a wider gender gap in education than last year. There are some women politicians, but India recorded a decline in political empowerment. It's also a fact that we have far fewer female leaders than needed to bring about swift action in favour of driving gender diversity. And of course, the crowning glory that not enough Indian women participate in the labour force of the country. A recent report by humanitarian organisation, CARE, states that 150 million women went hungry in India than men in 2021.

India has a lot going for it. The startup buzz always adds a cheer to the economy – we have 75,000 startups in the country, the number of unicorns is increasing, and even in the funding winter, sound businesses are finding investors. We are still considered as one of the economically-better performing nations in spite of two turbulent years of the pandemic. As a market, we are unsurpassed in our potential. From consumers to talent, we continue to produce a billion dreams and expense checking accounts.

But how do we talk of any progress that doesn't include women? Policies, programmes, public and private initiatives are myriad but they don't seem to be reaching all the women. There is an entrepreneurial wave in the country but women form only a marginal percentage of it. Only women reach the boardrooms and the dropout rate among women professionals continues to be high. In 2021, women's participation in the labour force was an abysmal 25.1 per cent.

The social, cultural, and professional atmosphere has not undergone a paradigm shift. There are positives, indeed, there are, but the wheels of change for women are painstakingly slow. How else do we explain the minimal progress in gender equality? Sure, we can blame the Covid-19 induced pandemic for thwarting some of our progress, but we can't blame the pace of our ascent entirely on two years that globally impaired efforts of gender diversity. In India, we have fewer than 1 in 5 women in the workforce while 4 out of 5 women don't work and aren't even looking.

WEF says that it will take 132 years to close the gender gap! We have a long way ahead to bridge this gap and bring about gender equality, and it's safe to say that at the current sluggish pace, you and I won't be around to witness this momentous event. But as of today, India has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates (LFPR) in the world. So, in the 75th year of our independence, let's not celebrate mediocracy, but strive to do the best we can in our lifetime to correct the gender disparity.

The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. Views expressed are personal

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