Greater political power alone will not improve women’s plight-English Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 9, 10, 11 and 12 Students.

Greater political power alone will not improve women’s plight

“Frailty”, the name given to woman by William Shakespeare in the Elizabethan days, has long since lost its relevance. Woman, the better half of man, has since woken up from her slumber of the millennia and is asking for her due place in society. Women comprise almost 49 percent of the population of the country and are thus the largest minority community in the land. Their socio-modern society. Economic-political development cannot, therefore, be ignored by

Although the role and the status of an urban woman has been gradually improving during recent years, the condition of the rural woman is still pathetic and miserable. Such evil social customs as the purdah, child marriage, female infanticide, dowry system and such other practices make the lives of the women all the more vulnerable. These evil social practices coupled with very low literacy rate, superstition and polygamy (in certain communities) have relegated the status of women to that of second-grade citizens. They have been denied the equal status with men, equality of opportunity and equal pay for equal work, although their contribution to life and civilisation is no less than that of men.

Women have always assisted their men in farming activities like sowing, harvesting, industrial activity, engineering, medicine, nursing, teaching and the like. Today we have women who fly aeroplanes, run hotels, teach in schools and colleges, prevent crime, manage crowds and produce films besides performing the domestic chores and rearing children. The working women of today have to lead a much more strenuous and busy life than their stay-at-home counterparts, with practically no time for rest. All these things paint a gloomy and somber picture of a working woman of India of today.

In order to improve the status of women and to ensure some measure of gender equality the need for empowerment of women has been keenly felt for quite some time. With this end in view, the National Commission for Women had proposed reservation of 33 percent of seats in Parliament and the State Assemblies.

In pursuance of this objective, the Constitution (81st Amendment) Bill, 1996 has also been drafted. The basic object of this Bill is to politically awaken and empower women and ensure their effective participation in political and democratic institutions. The Bill rests on the premise that the gender composition of our elected assemblies is not relevant to their functioning.

The first step towards the improvement of the lot of women, therefore, should be to educate them. Education is the seed that holds in its womb the fruit of development, self-reliance and prosperity. Therefore, providing reservation for women in educational institutions and giving them better job opportunities is far more important than providing reservation in Parliament and State Legislatures, where they will be under statutory obligation to cast their vote in accordance with the party whip.

It is also not correct to believe that only women legislations can look after the rights of women. Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi have done much more for the emancipation of women than any woman legislator or minister-either present or past. The foremost need of Indian women is to provide them protection against the advances of roadside Romeos, against sex-starved colleagues and bosses who expose them to the worst type of sexual harassment at the workplace and last, but not the least, from the incestuous molestation by their own blood relations and guardians within the four walls of their own homes.

Women surely have an important role to play in the modern India of today. We are busy with our plans of national reconstruction, rural uplift and all-round development of our country for its progress and prosperity. In the social, economic and political spheres, woman have to shoulder responsibilities along with men. The foremost need of the hour is to create an atmosphere where innocent women can move about freely without any risk to their life and honour. Swami Vivekananda had observed: “There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved; it is not possible for a bird to fly only on one wing.” 

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