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Nihal Sharma, the priced male child of the family, is in 10th grade looking forward to a professional career as most boys that age. He will mostly pursue a career in the IT department as he will have to provide for a family. He has grown up watching Bollywood movies which perpetuate patriarchy and rape culture. He thinks of women as the weaker sex. His family, time and again, have told him that he would inherit the family properties after his sister’s dowry has been paid. This also makes him expect dowry from his bride. 

Gender and Education

Source: Artley, G.S. Artleytoons.com 

There continues to be a gender gap in education. This gap can be measured by looking at the gross number of girls enrolled in schools. Most poor children are sent to preschool and primary school as the government provides them with a meal. Despite this, girls primary school enrolment rate is only 30.43%. More women than men are left illiterate. The higher the level of education the more likely women drop out. By high school, only 1/6 girls who enrolled and 1/20 of all girls enrolled in high school. Once girls get their periods, they are expected to learn the household chores and prepare to get married. These are the expectations of most girls. They arise from ideas of what a girl should be like and become beliefs and actions that society implements. These are intern embodied by the educational system which perpetuates them and sees to it that women are within the given boundaries. The boundaries happen to be minimal or no education and a marriage. 

So Nihal, being the boy, knows that he will get a better education. He while he aspires for a good college, his sister’s dreams would have to be of a good marriage even if she gets a higher education. 

Source: NSSO 68th round, 2011-12

 Gender and Jobs

Source: Carroll, Z. Cartoonstock.com

There is a gender segregation in the kind of work women do and which position they hold. Some jobs are seen as feminine and those are the jobs women are expected to do even if they work. Did the idea of women rub on to their preferred jobs or were occupations segregated and women were given the powerless ones to keep them powerless? In India, only 7% of managerial positions are held by women!  Women are mostly found doing the assistant work to help others, mostly men, in their job to lower the production costs as woman’s work is worth lesser than a man’s. They hold 28% of all the jobs in technical and associate professionals. Though they are out of their house doing productive labor, they are still doing the care and supportive jobs which help men. Like educational institutes, ideas and beliefs of a woman are a part of the employers and employing institutes. 

Nihal expects to be placed well when he finishes his studies. As the boss or under an experienced man. If his boss is a woman, it’s abnormal and insulting. Despite his sister’s education, she will not be expected to earn for the family or even if she does, nothing would be expected of her professionally.

Source: Figure 5.1, State of Working India, 2018, Azim Premji University.