Swagata Sen
A Clinical Researcher by profession, I am originally from India; now live in California with my family. I am an advocate of gender equality and women empowerment. I am also a Certified Reiki Healer and a Certified Sexual Assault Counselor and Advocate. I write about women's rights, equality and gender based issues to create awareness and to include every body in my fight against gender discrimination.
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How Can We Dismantle the Social Construct of Female Beauty?
Women’s bodies and sexuality have historically been used as a commodity to sell everything on earth, from car tires to the household appliances! Women are often depicted as objects of visual and sexual pleasure across television, magazines, media, and entertainment industries. If we look around ourselves, we’ll find hypersexualized and unrealistically perfect female forms almost everywhere.…
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Understanding The Harmful Tradition of Breast Ironing
What is Breast Ironing? Breast Ironing is a harmful cultural practice that continues to perpetuate silently in different parts of the world for centuries. Once a girl’s breast starts growing during puberty, usually, the mother carries out the practice. Where is this custom prevalent? This is primarily practiced in West and Central Africa- Nigeria, Togo, Republic…
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Gender Equality Begins At Home : A Personal Reflection
As a mother of a boy and a girl, I was very conscious about never imposing social gender norms and stereotypes on my children. It was primarily because of my own childhood experience. I was expected to act, behave, and express myself in a certain way since I was nine or ten years old. Since…
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Laid Off? Don’t Miss This Opportunity To Grow
Being laid off in the middle of an economic and public health crisis is probably one of the most difficult experiences one can go through. While it’s understandable that after losing a job the entire focus of a person shifts to finding another job. But, this process could be extremely daunting, leaving one frustrated and depressed,…
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Importance of Introducing Gender Education In Early Childhood
Thanks to the increasing number of feminist movements and activism, globally women’s rights and equality have started gaining momentum over the last three decades. Women’s empowerment, now, is an important developmental agenda in most of the countries. All societies have gradually accepted that women’s equality and empowerment plays a pivotal role in the overall development of…
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COVID 19 pandemic : Unseen Impacts on Women
As the COVID 19 pandemic continues to disrupt lives around the world, most of the countries have enforced some form of lockdown or shelter-in-place to prevent the infection outbreak. Experts have predicted that COVID 19 pandemic would impact every individual in some ways or other. We’ve already witnessed its catastrophic impact on public health and…
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Why Many Women in India stay Away From The Workforce?
According to the Global Gender Gap report 2020 by the World Economic Forum, India has one of the widest gaps in women’s economic participation and opportunities. India ranks 145th out of 153 countries in the economic participation index. Only around 25% of women, compared with 82% of men in India, work. Apparently Indian women choose…
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Why It’s so Hard For Women to Escape Abusive Relations?
Violence against women by their partners is prevalent in all countries, across different socio-economic classes. 1 in 3 women globally faces domestic violence. 1 in 5 women worldwide dies because of intimate partner violence. An estimated 87,000 women who were intentionally killed in 2017 globally, more than half (50,000- 58 per cent) were killed by…
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Objectification and Exploitation of Girls and Women by the Mass Media and the Social Media
. Objectification of Women by the Mass Media From the early nineteenth century, in television, films, printed and television commercials, and music videos, sexual objectification, and exploitation of women became an increasingly growing trend. Along with objectification, different industries also started using a false and unreal image of women’s physical appearance, body image, and beauty. Today,…
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Patrilocality: Roots of Gender Discrimination in Many Countries
What is Patrilocality? In Patrilocal societies, women move to their husbands’ house and co-reside with husbands’ parents after marriage. Patrilocality is associated with gender gaps in personal autonomy, decision making, education, health, and division of labor. With marriage, almost all the girls who live with her husband’s parents and extended family, lose a great deal of…
