By: Chetna Loomba
Last summer, I got the chance to visit my hometown in India. As I walked past India’s most famous cities: Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, I witnessed a multitude of families living in poverty. But, I soon came to realize that the women and girls of India are the true victims of poverty. I had only seen pictures before my visit to India, but none of them had the same impact on me as witnessing the reality of poverty with my own eyes.
Poverty is a life without having your basic needs met; it is a life full of despair. In India, poverty is a far too common problem that is a curse to millions of people. But among those millions, it is the women and girls who face the brunt of adversity.
From childhood to adulthood, Indian women are faced with discrimination in almost every facet in their lives, sometimes even in their own homes. A girl’s childhood is limited by the walls of her house. Few girls get a chance to go to elementary school. In some cases girls are sold into child labor because their parents cannot afford to raise them. Girls in India endure troublesome childhoods, which often leaves them helpless to escape a life of poverty. In reflection, I have come to understand that girls’ childhood should be cherished, preserved, and nurtured.
Many women and girls remain in poverty because of their lack of education. Families don’t put much effort into educating their girls, and later on without education they cannot maintain their own livelihoods, which leaves many of them in an economically immobile position. In some cases, families don’t have enough money to send their daughters to school. This generates a high rate of illiteracy in these women, they can’t think about getting a job because they don’t have any qualifications for a job. Women aren’t given a chance to make a living for their family. This type of mindset needs to be changed and people must realize that education for a girl is important.
The Indian culture is different for women and men, many ceremonies witness this gender inequality . If you notice in an Indian culture , the birth of a boy is a time of celebration and wealth; however, people take the birth of a girl as a curse and dismay. Women and girls are expected to stay at home and only to take care of the household and the kids. They are described as “weak,” “soft,” and “delicate” in today’s society. This thought process results in a domino effect, spreading the impact of poverty on females all around India.
Women are more poor than other groups of people because of job inequality. Men get a job easily with higher wages and women get a lower wage for the same job due to discrimination occurred at the workplace. Many women do not apply for jobs because they know they will get an unfair amount of pay and also be harassed in the workplace. Furthermore, some employers don’t hire women because they think women want extra advantage at the time of childbirth and are fragile in their work. Employers think that to hire women in the workforce is a waste of time and money. Many different employers believe that a woman can’t do her job perfectly because of household responsibilities. However, this picture is totally different in women's case: women are perfectly capable of managing their household as well as their work life. These dismal circumstances reveal society's inability to understand the worth of women, disabling them from having their own income.
Indian society is male dominated because even if a woman is well-educated she will always have less opportunities to work. Due to lack of opportunities women are left behind in poverty. If we look at some of the real life stories such as Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, she was the first Indian female doctor over a century ago. She continued to fight for what she believed in, even though many people discouraged her because of her gender. Lots of women want to prove themselves something extraordinary in their life, but lack of opportunities and encouragement keep them behind.
Many women are afraid to work because of many sexual harassment cases in India. Lately there have been numerous sexual harassment cases in India, but the law is doing nothing to solve this problem . India has the lowest female to male population ratio of 924 females per 1,000 males. Many women are afraid to go out to work because of sexual harassment and are forced to live in poverty. Sexual harassment is a violation of a women’s equality, life, and liberty. Women are left to fend themselves and are stuck in poverty for the rest of their life.
Many women and girls in India have struggled for too long in poverty. The only way to come out of poverty’s gloom is to lean towards a good education for women and girls. People must acknowledge that a female's strength and ability is far greater than the narrow scope that most people believe.
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