Triangular Attitude of Patriarchy: A Major Issue of Lifelong Learning among Women in India (original) (raw)
Related papers
Voices of Women in Rural India: Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, and Education
Contemporary Rural Social Work, 2012
An undergraduate social work student summarized her study abroad learning about rural women in India with this poem: Go to the people Live among them Learn from them Love them Start with what you know Build on what they have But of the best leaders When their task is done The people will remark "We have done it ourselves." (Perkins, 1993, p. 35) Clearly, the student learned much about community organization in social work practice. The purpose of this analysis is to relay the voices, actions, and messages of people living in northern rural villages in India per the observations and records of the student social worker. The majority of the people that talked to the student social worker were women. For example, the women told the student social worker about living with social and economic inequality. They discussed limited access to resources such as income and education. They said that resources were especially limited for women living in rural areas. Strengths of rural areas include informal community resources and leaders (Riebschleger, 2007). In an often patriarchal and impoverished rural India, the student observed that informal community leaders included rural women who pooled their assets to improve village well being. These community organization efforts appeared to be directed toward empowerment, entrepreneurship, and education, particularly for women and youth. Empowerment, entrepreneurship, and education comprise the "three E's" of social change efforts of the rural Indian women described herein.
Women in general and rural women in particular are deprived of equal access and opportunities to education and skill training programs; and the situation is more deep-rooted in developing countries. However, the level of people’s education, skills, information and awareness, quality of their attitudes, values, and intensity of their aspiration and energies affect the extent and pace of socioeconomic development of a country. The world’s latest 2015 data reveal that out of 781 million people aged 15 years and over, who cannot read and write, nearly two-thirds are women; a proportion remain unchanged for the past two decades (UN, 2015). Data also reveals that the vast majority of this group live in developing regions, particularly in Sub-Saharan African and Southern Asia. Thus, lack of equal access and opportunity to education in the region impedes socioeconomic participation of rural women and women in general. Therefore, this study aimed to look at the importance of lifelong and life-wide learning to enhance social participation of rural women. Thus, a total of 169 survey respondents from Nalpathimala village of Kottayam district, Kerala State of India were participated in providing necessary data. Descriptive statistics such as percentage, mean point value, and standard deviation were employed for data analysis. Further, Chi-Square test of independence was employed to test either statistically significant relationship between lifelong and life-wide learning, and social participation of rural women exists or not. Accordingly, the major findings of this study reveal that lifelong and life-wide learning can importantly contribute in providing school dropouts of rural women opportunity to improve their skills and knowledge, so that they will attain capability within their society; to enhance their participation in decision-making at family and community level; to enhance awareness of rural women towards family and community health issues; to improve their self-confidence; and to boost their social inclusion, therefore, to feel secure in their society. In sum, this particular study discloses the existence of significant association between lifelong and life-wide learning, and social participation of rural women.
Women Empowerment in Rural part of India:A Need
Journal of emerging technologies and innovative research, 2018
We are in the 21 st century, today women play the leading role in developing the society. Society cannot be created without the active contribution of women. In order to provide equal status in the society women need to be empowered. Policies on women's empowerment exist at the national, state, and local levels in many sectors, including health, education, economic opportunities, gender-based violence, and political participation.. Women can be empowered only when they are literate and educated. Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom for development. Of Indian women today, the female literacy levels according to the Literacy Rate 2017 census has been 87.95% where the male literacy rate has been over 95.56%. Being literate or having only primary education is not enough to enhance productivity or to obtain better-paying jobs but it is essential for women to pursue the higher education. Even beyond literacy there is much that education can do for women's rights, dignity and security. Empowerment of women is essentially the process of upliftment of economic, social and political status of women, the traditionally underprivileged ones, in the society. It is the process of guarding them against all forms of violence. The study is based on purely from secondary sources. The study reveals that women of India are relatively disempowered and they enjoy somewhat lower status than that of men in spite of many efforts undertaken by Government. It is found that acceptance of unequal gender norms by women are still prevailing in the society. The study concludes by an observation that access to Education, Employment and Change in Social Structure are only the enabling factors to Women Empowerment.
Communication Papers, 2012
In India the women's movement and the government have done much to ameliorate women's education and to build the gender gap. However, it is argued that India still has much gender inequalities embedded in society and, as a consequence, in education and that there is much work to be done in terms of implementation. An alternative form of education, the Mahila Samakhya Program, was launched in India in 1988 for the education and empowerment of women in rural areas and disadvantaged communities in order to achieve equality. The Mahila Sanghas or women's collectives were created to provide a space for women and girls to meet, reflect, ask questions and express their thoughts. This article argues for the implementation of an empowering education, apart from the formal education, to help women and girls overcome inequalities especially in education. It aims to prove how this empowering education increases education for poor women in rural areas, especially for girls. It examines the quality and results of the existing Mahila Samakhya program analyzing the empowering process. The case study will be the Indian state of Bihar and two theories of empowerment will be applied.
Education as a Catalyst for Change: Exploring Its Impact on Rural Women's Lives
IJMRAP, 2024
This study investigates the impact of education on the socioeconomic conditions, health awareness, political awareness, and decision-making authority among literate and illiterate rural women in the Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling districts of West Bengal, India. By surveying 100 women-50 literate and 50 illiterate-the research explores the differences in their roles, family dynamics, and perceptions of education, particularly girls' education. The findings reveal economic disparities with regard to literacy, younger women having higher education levels were economically more advantageous. Education is found to be crucial for empowering women and enhancing their economic independence, political autonomy, and participation in household decision-making. Despite a strong cultural norm of joint decision-making between husbands and wives across all educational levels, individual decision-making tends to be more common among less educated women, indicating varying levels of empowerment. The study highlights the importance of education in overcoming social barriers, promoting gender equality, and fostering autonomy among rural women.
A Study of Issues related to Empowerment of Female-Headed Households in Rural Areas in Sri Lanka
A Study of Issues related to Empowerment of Female-Headed Households in Rural Areas in Sri Lanka, 2019
The main objective of this study was to identify the social issues related to empowerment of women heads in rural areas. This empirical research was conducted in five Grama Niladari divisions of Galgamuwa divisional secretariat division which conveyed a marked increase of FHHs in Sri Lanka. Data were collected from a hundred FHHs through purposive sampling method. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used as primary data collection techniques. The research was conducted based on the survey method. Power and authority are attributed in most patriarchal societies to women mainly due to the disappearing of the male person of the household. It could identify that there was also an attitudinal issue inside women. They identified authority and power to make decisions as a difficult responsibility rather than an opportunity. Even after assuming headship of the household, women have tended spontaneously to depend on others specially on a male figure as soon as possible. Membership of community organizations illustrates a significant cross-cutting of the social profile of individuals. A majority (99%) of FHHs had obtained membership of death donation organization and Samurdhi organization (79%). But importantly, it could be identified that majority of FHHs (80%, 66%, and 55%) had not obtained memberships respectively of the women development organization, water organization, and farmers’ organization. According to above data, it infers the idea that most of FHHs have obtained membership of community organization based on their benefits not because of any other motivational factors. Most of the current government programmes have related to the financial and physical allowances and has influenced to create a dependent mentality and to decrease the motivational factors among FHHs. Majority of FHHs in the sample (73%) had been benefitted by any kind of public financial source such as Samurdhi, allowances for disabled persons or “Pin Padi”. In one hand, it has become a great contribution to their household income. On the other hand, it has influenced to create dependency mentality among most of women. As a result of that, a larger percentage of FHHs (75%) had requested more programmes on financial aids. In conclusion, it infers that the low level of motivation and empowerment, inadequate awareness about skills and potentials of them and limited knowledge on true sense and importance of community development components had affected to create a negative impact within them. Based on these findings it has been suggested to introduce integrated projects based on participatory development approach and methods of social inclusion to enhance opportunities to build self-esteem and self-confidence and to identify adaptation and mitigation actions to reduce hardships and issues through empowering latent potentials and skills of FHHs.
Examining the Educational Empowerment of Rural Women: Evidences from a Study of Punjab Village
Equal access to educational opportunity is a basic human right essential to well being. Educational gap at attainment levels between male and female and further between female of rural and urban have been remained as focus of research. This paper is based upon the study of a Punjab village to assess the educational empowerment of rural women residing in that village. The study has been carried out on a sample of 200 women identified and designed as rural women in the age group of 20 to 50 years. Semis structured interview schedule, field notes along with observation were the techniques used in study. The findings of the study reveal that rural women have very low level of education. Among all social groups, scheduled caste women are at margin level. Poverty in the family and non-availability of the school in village has been emerged as major cause behind educational deprivation of rural women. Empirical finding have shown that increase in educational level among rural women, their family income enhances. It is suggested that education is pertinent domain to make women empowered and self-reliant. Efforts should be made through different ways to make women educated and self-dependent. Ensuring educational opportunity to all is essential for more than one reason.