All of us know really well how deeply rooted patriarchy is in Indian Culture and society. Even today when the world is in 21st century, women are considered incompetent to take charge of responsibilities at home and workspaces. This is because India has always been a male dominant country where men are considered more responsible, more sincere and more capable than their counterparts without having to prove that. And this brings us to the fight between feminism and patriarchy in today’s world. The term feminism means giving an equal status to women everywhere be it workplace or home or any other place in the society while patriarchy is something which has been practiced by Indians for last many decades. Patriarchy empowers the male members everywhere to take charge and responsibility in the society. The world is fighting with this issue of bringing equality in the status of men and women in society. Females today are giving a tough fight to males in every field whether it is sports, business or corporate world. Women have extended their arms everywhere. They are pilot, engineer, doctor, model, actor, scientist, homemaker and not what. There is no work in this world today which a man can do and a woman can’t. So basically they have proved to be equally competent to men but still there is a lack of recognition and appreciation for them in the society. Also, men having lesser capabilities, lesser sincerity are considered better than females even if the females are more responsible. So all in all patriarchy is not just a social system that has existed in our society for ages, but it’s a mental issue wherein only a change in thought process of the people living in society at large can bring some improvement. So, since now we have seen what feminism is, what is patriarchy and how it is affecting us?? The next thing which is to be done here is to combat this issue which has already got a lot of attention and popularity these days. So since there is already a lot discrimination against women, one of the best thing that can be done to counter this is to appreciate women for any small or big work that they do. Also respect every woman, it doesn’t matter whether she is a model or a homemaker. Every profession deserves respect and so does every human being. So it is not about male or female or giving a higher status to females or males in society but to respect every human being. Each and every person is special and unique in his/her own way and should be loved and respected for the same and not for gender.

It’s already been a couple of years since the inception of the SARS COV2 or more commonly known as the CORONA VIRUS (COVID-19) and various sectorial growth has either decreased or are at a slow rate or are almost negligible or vanished - one among those is the: Educational sector, because over the time we have seen reopening and functioning back of various business sectors- groceries, malls, bars, pubs, etc. but neither the schools nor the colleges. So, why is this difference ?

When educational institutions are termed as our second home or the temple for learning space, why are these shrine been locked up for a couple of years in a row now ?

Let’s look into the various sectorial division into the nation’s economy :- The spending upon the education sector has been quite less compared to the foreign nations but measures have been taken to increment those but we need to do even more. However, looking into the bigger picture - it’s the trade, commerce and intercourse that actually provides a greater share to the economy and undoubtedly the services sector: accounting to ~₹96 Lakh crores. The Indian IT company is on the verge of touching $100 B, which is just humongous. The export industry has risen up to $81 B, whereas imports has lessened and so have the manufacturing industry too. Overall the economy is in the state of recovery but education seems to be a less contributor to the economy. But, this may not be the main reason for not reopening the educational institutions, because, food and finance sector has always been the primary focus as they are more important to purchase because that’s the requisite of survival and all others are secondary and surprisingly both health as well as educational sector fall under the later category where the bar of investment needs to be urgently risen as they can be a major contributor towards leading a fast growing and developing nation. Even fashion has been kept prior to these sectors. The negligence into there quantity has scaled down their quality both from the individual as well as government point of view. Many youths still suffer from unemployment and this solely can’t be always blamed upon the government as there are various measures which lead to such a condition among which the first is being careless and being unaware, which needs to be rectified as sooner as possible.

There has been ample number of opportunities rolled out but not all of them seems to be a successful one or legit or even convincible to the mass, it’s same like the stories of the independence struggle that has been spun out by numerous citizen according to their own framed mindset without evidences. But, in case of the reforms and policies the implementation is main thing and then the after math results because at times wonders may occur but only through thorough analysis, research and consultation rather than just being partial about it. But apart from all these intelligent quotient there comes an emotional quotient into play and that’s where people start thinking from their deepest intuition and start making decisions based upon them. Although, consequence could also be the same if the thought process would be the other way but it’s just one of those feeling that let us bind into EQ factors. Why aren’t educational institutions open yet ? I: Although the school students whose immune systems are well to be an antirespondent to the virus which shows only 0.003% for the age group <19 years, it may seem that these mass of pupil could easily attend school but at the same time there are others such as non-teaching stuffs, faculties, and the whole transportation and all these will lead to higher transmission of the virus and going by the EQ point of view most of the parents do not want the schools and colleges to operate even at this point of time as they're very highly concerned about their child due to the term - "mass gathering". II: The scenario with colleges are also the same but not everyone can be taken into account and this is where the risk factor raises, one never knows who they have been in touch with recently and they may have been affected or deceased to the virus. The general concerns shows up once again. III: The digitalization era has taken a toll just like the dot com bubble burst which depicts that people are readily accepting these online mode of learning at the benefit of their own housings. Neither does one needs to travel nor do they need to purchase multiple stuffs because everything is available there on the internet and people do not really fuss out about it. Companies such as - Byju’s, Unacamdey, EdX, Coursera, Vedantu, Great Learning with millions and billions of dollars of revenue and market valuation, has been a boon to the kids of these age and a great relief to parents too as they’ve been merrily relying upon these resources and are sure about the security of education that are being provided to their children respectively by the available mentors. But, certain courses such as – Law, Non-Software Technical studies, Medical requires greater hands on implementation but there exist technology to almost readily automate any given thing. However, is the country ready to expand their band of expense upon such a hovering technology to assist Indian education ? Well this is a question about the coalition between the state as well as the union minister and let us leave the decision on their own because such a feature should lead greater expenditure into education at this point of time. OVERALL ON TOP OF ALL THESE - THEY'RE LOOSING THE GRIP FROM THE CURRICULUM AND DIVERSITY AND THE RESPECTIVE TECHNIQUES that schooling has provided us throughout this generation maybe making them less confident at an open ambient or at such structures but if e-learning method provides such facilities by constantly keeping the balance between academic and non-academic activities the bar for difference during a physical meet would just disappear in a short term. SO HERE IN THIS CASE A TRIO NEEDS TO BE SET WHERE THE PARENTS - TEACHERS - STUDENTS needs to be in a well and good connection to prosper the multiple aspects of knowledge and power. Although, the educational sector contributes to the economy. The online educational services are changing the method of learning through digitalization thus peaking up the hybrid mode (tended more towards electronic mode) of learning into the higher heights as the NEP 2020 too depends on that.

Gender gap is the difference between what men and women do and achieve or the way men and women are treated in society. Has anyone thought why this gap keeps getting wider and wider? Despite of numerous protests, so many reforms, the record number of women breaking through glass ceilings, we are still living in a male-centric, patriarchal world. Why?

Let's try to understand this from the beginning. The Gender Gap report determines the countries' ranks on the basis of three parameters mainly.

Economic participation & opportunity Educational participation Political participation Starting from the first one i.e Economic participation. Women's contribution in decision making from their own house to the higher institutions, access to productive resources, participation in current markets equally- all this comes under economic development.

Only 14.6 per cent women occupy senior managerial position in India and just 5% of the Fortune 500 companies CEOs are women. Shekhar Gupta, an Indian journalist and author explained- "For every five rupees that men earn in India, women earn only one. Indian women’s earnings are only 20.7 per cent of men’s". It puts the country among the bottom 10 globally on this indicator. And then we talk of sustainable development without even knowing that closing gender gaps in the economic work world is the key to achieve the 2030 agenda of Sustainable development. How?

On global level, a third proportion of women’s employment is in agriculture. Land is perhaps the most crucial asset on the economic basis and women account for only 12.8% of agri landholders in the world. And women migrant workers. Despite of being highly skilled, the migrant women face havocs to access foreign labour markets. As a result, they have to engage in low paying jobs and tackle bad working conditions, physical violence, limited labour and social protection.

As we're talking of stats, here's an eye opener- It is estimated that gender gap costs the economy some 15 percent of GDP. 15 PERCENT!!

Apart from gender wage gaps, a woman also faces the motherhood wage penalty and it keeps on increasing as the number of children a woman has increases. And what about unpaid care work and domestic work? Talking on GDP terms if this unpaid work will be allotted a monetary value, it would be 10% to 39% of GDP.

Clearly, there is a need for policy initiatives to empower women as gender disparities in India persist even against the backdrop of economic growth. If real change is to be implemented, a focus on creating genuinely inclusive workplace cultures is imperative where women are not only hired, but also alloted decision-making positions and finally be able to lead companies. While increasing representation of women in the public platforms is important and can potentially be attained through some form of positive action, an attitudinal shift is essential for women to be considered as equal within their homes and in broader society.

The second one is educational participation. In India, disparities in education is observed via many distributions like gender, caste or religion. The probability of girls getting primary education in the most depressed regions is about 42% lower than boys and the figure remains the same even if religion and caste issues are set aside. If women won’t have access to quality education, then obviously they won’t be able to access affordable healthcare, legal assistance and job opportunities. Even if girls attend school, discrimination follows. There are many obstacles to education for girls such as local cultural practices, poverty, and the most important one which needs high attention is lack of proper sanitation facilities in school. A number of girls leave schools after reaching puberty just because of poor hygiene facilities. Even adolescent pregnancy can be prevented by giving access to education to girls. UNESCO found that girls with higher level of education are less likely to fall pregnant under the age of 17. The chances of adolescent pregnancy is lowered by 10% for each additional year of education a girl completes. Also, providing quality education to girls decreases the infant mortality rate.

Educating girls is of central importance for achieving equality between genders as well as improving the well-being of the community.

Then comes the political participation.

Do you know that the countries with higher levels of women in political power also tend to have higher levels of women in business leadership.

Even after a growing evidence that women in leadership and political decision making positions improve the systems in which they work, there is less engagement of women in this field i.e only around 23% of all national parliamentarians were women. A study has shown that this is due to the lower levels of internal political efficacy that means a measure of one’s confidence to participate effectively and efficiently in politics. This is somewhat related to how women perceive their role in this particular area. Or can say, that this is because of a gap in psychological engagement in politics. Even when women try to face the society and stand for elections, they face violence and intimidation. Is this because women’s participation in politics threatens the patriarchal dominance?

We have to resolve this issue so that women can participate safely and freely in elections. They must be free to campaign and free to vote.

And just to clear, Democracy is not democratic without equality.

More than 150 countries still have the laws that discriminate against women. Nationality laws, inheritance & ownership laws, penal laws, family laws- to name a few. At this rate of progress, it'll take us around 196 years to close these gaps, to get to gender parity. There’s a need of equal inclusion of half of the world’s talent to grow our economies. Reskilling women for high growth sectors, enhancing pay standards, quality of work, enhancing social safety nets, especially on provision of childcare support, engagement of more women at managerial and political positions. Government is also playing a vital role in helping to close the gaps. Few of the programs started by government are HeForShe By UN women, Bet Bachao Beti Padhao, OSC (One Stop Centre) scheme by Ministry of Women & Child Development, Ujjawala scheme etc. But these formal policies are not enough until and unless these are accompanied by efforts to better inform women about their rights and what they can achieve with them.

With more balanced societies, we’ll be able to gain peace and prosperity.

UPROOTING PATRIARCHY

Patriarchy literally means " rule of father ". Today it is a term that is referred as a social system where power is concentrated in the hands of men. It is misleading that if you think patriarchy affects women alone. We all are victims of patriarchy. Some just suffer more than others. We live in a society where our everyday behaviours, thoughts and emotions are shaped by the patriarchal notions, that prevails in the structure of the society.

Patriarchy have it's root in our families. A child accepts and learns a set of norms, values, attitude from the behaviour of parents. In Indian society, there is a notion that males are breadwinners and women are homemakers, which itself is a result of the patriarchal norms. For example, if a child sees his or her mother expressing hatred towards anybody, the child may think this behaviour is acceptable and could continue to practice hatred towards others.Even the toys are given to the girls and boys during their childhood also has their effects. Often the boy child was given a bike toy, whereas the girl child was given a barbie doll. Our society teaches that A boy must not disclosure his emotions, not to wear pink color dress , not do household works and must have strong body . A girl must be fair, slim, patient and always thinking and caring for her family . We are being fed with these norms everyday and start to believe one day and accept it as casual. The only path to free everyone from these shackles of patriarchy is Feminism.

Feminism is not enhancing women by depressing men.It’s not about hating men. It’s not about women being better than men. It is the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. But today it isn't enough to merely believe in feminism, one also has to practise it in all spheres of life and activity. It seeks to abolish gender defined roles not just for women but for men too. We both men and women have to break the patriarchy at it's roots. Make your child believe that the world is for everyone through your actions. A working male in a household, cooking for some time with his wife will make a great difference to the child. This develops a sense in the child that no job is restricted to no one and no one is restricted from doing any job. Make understand your baby boy that it is normal to cry and all the colors are for everyone. Gift both bike and barbie to your sons and daughters. Make your daughter believe that beauty is not in skin color and body shape.
Patriarchy tries to define for us, who a man is or who a woman is. But in reality, the only thing that makes you male or female or transgender is that you identify as such. The right to gender identity is fundamental to equality. Equality cannot be attained unless you believe that all are equal. Let us all join our hands to build a society where our future generations are treated equal and are allowed to do what their soul desires irrespective of their gender....