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Restrictions on what girls are and are not allowed to do start from a young age.
They are told that public spaces are unsafe for them, and hence, they’d best stay at home. The reason that public spaces are so unsafe for women seem to be rooted in the very idea that a woman’s place is within the household, rather than the other way around.
This cycle is further fuelled by the attitude that making women feel unsafe, or verbally and physically assaulting them, takes away some aspect of their worth, and thus crimes against women are often used as tools to punish, humiliate or disparage her, her family, and/or her community.
These attitudes lend girls to be controlled by various members of her family and community from the time she hits puberty.
While female disadvantage during early childhood can be identified by parents investing fewer resources in their daughters compared to their sons, from the time a girl hits adolescence she is disadvantaged in two ways:
Studies over the years have found that women even use public spaces differently from men, rarely using them for leisure, but rather only functionally - to get from point A to B.
For this reason, we find that women might choose to study in only specific colleges or take up such jobs that involve travelling safer routes, or are within their home city. In all these cases, women end up compromising on the quality of, or forgoing entire experiences so as to remain out of harm’s way.
Much of this seems to be rooted in the idea that a woman’s honour is precious and needs protection. What else can explain the fact that the very law made to protect women against certain crimes is described as “outraging the modesty of women”?
Finally, it is pertinent to note that such restrictions and seemingly outdated practices are not a thing of the past, and are definitely not a trait of only the poor, rural or “backward” groups (a rather smugly held belief by us elite).
A woman’s lack of access to basic public spaces such as education or good jobs ensures that the cycle disadvantage she faced since childhood continues, by seeping into various other aspects of her life. This might include her ability to become independent, or her ability to maintain a healthy sense of self-worth.
This is important as a large body of work discusses how the ability to be free to take part in activities that one values (especially activities involving social interaction and contributing to society) has a huge part to play in improving a person’s overall happiness. Further, for women to have such freedom and agency is not only socially desirable and beneficial for their families, but also contributes to overall economic growth and prosperity.
(Nisha Vernekar is an economics graduate student at SOAS, University of London. Karan Singhal works at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. This is the second part of articles discussing female disadvantage in various stages of a woman’s life (Read the first part on early childhood female disadvantage here)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
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