A Pew survey holds the mirror up to men as regards women’s status at home and in society

Nine in 10 Indians agree with the notion that a wife must always obey her husband. It is not from a lost-and-found book of the last century, but the results of a survey conducted by Pew Research Centre between November 2019 and March 2020, just around the time the Coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan in China and spreading across the world. If this is the current Indian attitude, what do we mean by empowering women? The survey results illustrate the difference between women breaking glass ceilings and “allowing” women to break glass ceilings. Just under 30,000 Indians from across categories and classes took part in the survey. It is by no means representative of a country with over a billion people, but it does tell us where the wind is blowing. Let us start from scratch. Ninety-four per cent say it is very important for a family to have at least one son. For 40 per cent of the participants, sex-selective abortion is “acceptable in at least some circumstances”. However, those who find the practice “completely unacceptable” are more, at 42 per cent. The chauvinism comes out clearly when it comes to jobs. Forty-three per cent believe earning an income is a job for men. Double that percentage wants scarce jobs to go to men. Just over 70 per cent say gender equality is important. Compare that with over 90 per cent in North America and West Europe, 64 per cent in Pakistan, and the 40 per cent range in Africa.

The survey simply tells us as a country we have a lot of ground to cover before women can say, yes, there is gender parity. Women are capable of standing on their own, but they still need the crutches of institutions, like the judiciary, to make them acceptable. The courts have had to intervene to change the attitudes of organisations like even the Army. The debate between the Union Government and the Delhi High Court on criminalising marital rape grabbed headlines all of February. The Government argued that it would trivialise the institution of marriage but, in reality, it is actually about gender profiling. Take the pandemic waves, for instance. More women than men lost their jobs. In the rural areas, women lost jobs because men returning from cities needed the MNREGA jobs. Women ended up with more unpaid care work at home. Women in low-income households not only lost jobs but were forced to reduce their food intake to feed their families. More girls than boys dropped out of school and that may trigger more child marriages in near future. Married women are more likely to not return to work as the country comes out of the pandemic scare because of increased household responsibilities in the last two years. The one redeeming feature in the Pew survey is that Indians with college degrees are less inclined to hold traditional views on women. We can build upon that.