According to the Global Gender Gap report 2020 by the World Economic Forum, India has the one of the widest gap in women’s economic participation and opportunities. India ranks 145th out of 153 country in the economic participation index. Only around 25% of women, compared with 82% of men in India, work. Apparently Indian women choose to stay away from the workforce! Furthermore, female estimated earned income in India is a mere one-fifth of male income, which is also among the world’s lowest (144th). Women only account for 14% of leadership roles (136th) and 30% of professional and technical workers. Another report from McKinsey Global Institute suggests that, women’s…

 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 their freedom, decision making power and autonomy. A girl is expected to follow the rules and norms, sometimes strict and irrelevant, set by her husband’s parents. Often, the choice of a girl’s lifestyle, starting from food habit to dressing sense and even the way she behaves or talks are questioned, faced with criticism, and…

    What is the male guardianship rule?   Women in Saudi Arabia, irrespective of their age, education or employment status,  must have a male guardian, typically a father, brother, husband or uncle (mahram). Women are treated like second class citizens in Saudi Arabia. All females, girls, and women are forbidden from traveling, conducting official business, or undergoing certain medical procedures without permission from their male guardians. Women are not allowed to leave the house without a male accompany. The ownership of a woman is passed from one man to another, typically from the father or the brother to the husband. Women are treated as possessions of their male guardians.…

  Women in many parts of the world still have a very little or no choices on their own lives. Historically, no country in the world had similar rights for men and women in all the areas. Women had to fight for equal rights and privileges in every aspect  – starting from voting rights to rights to inherit their father’s property, or even to drive cars! Over the last 50 years, many reforms have improved women’s legal rights. But, according to a World Bank Report, even now in over 100 countries, women are restricted from doing certain work solely because of gender discrimination.  Out of 173 countries, only 18 are…

    Do you know that wife-beating was legal and a very common practice in almost all countries prior to the mid-1800s? Most legal systems viewed wife-beating as a valid exercise of a husband’s authority over his wife?   Women and children were seen as ‘belonging’ to a man, therefore controlling of his wife and children in the form of physical violence or punishment by a man were acceptable in religious and civil laws of all societies.   Legal Documents from the Medieval Age from different regions support wife-beating was legally allowed to ‘control, correct, support and instruct’ the wife by her husband. During the 1800s, wife beating was extremely…

  In January 2019, a woman in Nepal died in the ‘menstruation hut’ with her 2 kids. They died of possible suffocation or carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire they lit to warm the hut in the freezing cold!   Women in Nepal are forced to live in animal sheds or secluded huts in inhuman conditions, during menstruation.   Chhaupadi or menstruation exile is a century old practice in Nepal, where women are banned from entering their own house, meeting any people, eating good or nutritious food and participating any social and religious events.   This was not the first death of a woman in her menstruation exile in Nepal; there…