By Amitabh Kumar, Head of Media and Communication at Centre for Social Research and one of CSR’s gender trainers.

When my colleague asked me to write about ‘what it feels like to be a man working towards gender justice’ I didn’t know where to begin. I thought to myself, I could write a series of books on this subject and yet so much would still be left out. For the past three years I have been working for this cause and it’s been extremely challenging. The prevalence of gender justice across most of India derives from a misinterpretation of the patriarchal structures in our country, and being an only child and a boy, I have grown up enjoying the luxuries such a patriarchal society provides for the male sex.

In the beginning when I first started running gender training workshops, I struggled with my own internal conflicts. I realised that although I had been brought up in an extremely socially aware, gender-just household, there was nonetheless room for gender sensitisation in my own life. I believe that external influences of modern society, media and culture have a tendency to programme us in such a manner that we pick up unnatural behavioural traits. I’d say that as a child and young adult growing up in an age of globalisation, I was greatly influenced by pop culture of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Like most other teenagers around me, the social stigma of being ‘cool’ was the primary objective of life, and looking back on it, we did the most irrational, unexplainable and primitive things just to be cool. Coming from a hip-hop inspired ‘gotta-be-macho’ mindset, the idea of breaking away from that scene and the notion that ‘girls are fancy accessories’ was really hard.

Barring this internal challenge to being a man who works toward gender equality, there is also an external challenge. A frequent remark and one that still remains the hardest to respond to is, ‘You are a man, you can never fully understand what women go through’. It’s very true: I cannot. But on the other hand, injustice, discrimination, fear and pain are all human feelings. Men can probably never fully imagine the extent of gender discrimination in this country, but we sure can do a lot about it.

Many of the presentations, discussions and trainings I have been party to during my job in this sector tend to spiral off into a direction where men are regarded as the ‘enemy’. Trust me, it’s no easy task to reroute such a discussion back onto a more positive, less accusatory track. I must say, at times I feel I almost need to be a punching bag, to take one for the team. But that’s also where my motivation comes from. So many gender issues arise from miscommunication and misinterpretation, and the only way we can ever achieve a gender-just society is by working together to iron out these faults.

Despite the great work has been done by women and feminist groups in the past 40 years, I seriously think that while focusing so intently on the victim, they forgot all about the perpetrator and his role in making India a safer, fairer place to live. Providing justice is undoubtedly important, but an even more important task is to prevent injustice from materialising in the first place. The only way we to achieve that vision is by including men in the process.

Needless to say, faced by so many challenges, a normal day at work for me is pretty adventurous, and as there are very few men working for this cause, I consider it a privilege to be amongst the select few.

This is part two of a two-part series. Read part one here.

Last week, we looked at the women who are stepping into the limelight within the Indian corporate sector to become managers, against all the odds. Sadly, a recent Centre for Social Research study on Women Managers in India highlighted several major factors still inhibiting their goals and aspirations.

In other words, representation of women at the top level of management is proportionately low compared to men in India. A solid glass ceiling prevents women from moving upwards in their careers and if companies are serious about striving toward greater diversity in their management, systematic changes are needed. In response to its findings, the CSR Research Division has outlined the following key recommendations for change:

The major barrier for the promotion of women managers in India is insensitivity towards women’s social roles and responsibilities. Active changes to the recruitment system, company policies, legislation and increased opportunities and training for women employees are needed in order to reach more proportionate gender representation in Indian corporate management.

This is part one of a two-part series. Read part two here.

“Women are fragile.” “Women are indecisive.” “Women are too emotional.” “Women are inexperienced.”

These are some of the stereotypes with which many still view women in the workplace in India today. Such pre-conceptions consequently stand in the way of success for even the most capable and talented women in their professional lives. Centre for Social Research’s recent study, Women Managers in India, has revealed unsettling explanations for the distinct lack of power and authority which remains a reality for the majority of professional women in management positions in three of India’s most rapidly developing cities. During 2009-2011 our Research team surveyed 264 women managers in Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore in order to examine the underlying factors which impede women’s professional success, as well as uncover how and why women continue to struggle to prove their worth in what is often described as ‘a man’s world’.

Women managers–those that supervise 13 or more members of staff–face a variety of gender-based challenges in different corporate sectors such as health, media, finance and hospitality in India. However, views on what these challenges are differ widely between corporate levels and sectors.

The resounding opinion is that while many women are confronted with male ego, which eventually results in a loss of opportunities, they are also subjected to other factors which make the workplace an uncomfortable environment for women and constitute serious obstacles to gender equality. For one, 72% of the companies audited did not have any gender-specific policies to encourage female staff into leadership positions, suggesting that there is no intention of moving towards greater representation of women in management in the private sector. Women-specific forums for reporting grievances or gaining support on how to further one’s career do not exist either, sustaining an unwelcoming atmosphere for women in a male-dominated workplace.

In addition to the lack of institutionalised support for existing and aspiring women managers in Indian firms, gender inequality is clearly visible in the workplace. Special facilities such as flexible working hours and medical benefits are usually only available to men and not women. Given the traditional views surrounding family and marriage and the perceived importance of a woman’s role in the home in Indian society, young married women especially struggle to balance their careers and family lives. This is due to an insensitive approach toward women’s family obligations and related disagreements over maternity benefits and leave. According to our survey, 18% of study participants complained of conflicting roles, responsibilities and complaining in-laws who wanted the daughter-in law to quit her job.

But why is there a lack of understanding about the responsibilities and needs of a young working mother? In India, when women attempt to maintain a balance between time spent at home and at the office, their efforts are often misinterpreted as a lack of commitment to their job.

However, for many women starting out in their career or already working their way up the ladder, the real problem does not lie in commitment to their job but in the individual challenge of finding sufficient drive to reach the upper management level. As a result, women become complacent with the position they are holding at work, and their zeal for more responsibility and success begins to fade. While 63% of women in entry-level positions in Delhi expressed their aspiration to reach the top, only 48% of mid-career women expressed the same. Many women with such goals admitted that they were unaware of how to fulfill their ambitions or lacked confidence. While not expressly addressed in the study, there’s likely a direct link between these figures and the lack of support and encouragement for women in the workplace in corporate Indian organisations.

Photo credit: wn.com

The notion of justice for women—more specifically, women’s access to justice—in India heavily relies on constitutional mandates that entrust the police with the role of ensuring that crimes against women are reported and investigated. According to a Thompson Reuters poll from just this year, India is the 4^th most dangerous place in the world for women. Clearly, the extent to which India has attained success in guaranteeing the safety of and providing a sense of security to its women remains highly debatable.

Last week, Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee announced its plan to set up 65 all-woman police stations across 20 state districts. While the world’s first all-women police station was set up in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1985, India was not far behind in launching its very own all-women police stations in the state of Tamil Nadu under the Jayalalitha government in 1992. Yet two decades later, the lack of strategic and visionary thinking has stalled the creation of these police stations all over India.

Like in Tamil Nadu and following the creation of one such station in Chandigargh, the upcoming all-women police stations in West Bengal will make it possible for women officers to investigate crimes against women—and for victims of such crimes to be attended to by women officers. According to the Chief Minister, these police stations will deal with increasing crimes against women and encourage women to join the police force.

Police stations in India are notoriously hostile environments, leaving some victims feeling less secure than before their visit. In particular, victims of rape, sexual harassment and trafficking have reported revictimisation by the very police officers tasked with helping them. In the largely patriarchal Indian society, most women still consider discussing personal or sexual matters with a stranger—especially a man—improper.

For these reasons and more, the CSR team is excited to see the all-women police station initiative taking root in West Bengal. In a recent discussion, our Director Dr. Ranjana Kumari commented that as a “leading light,” Calcutta will hopefully inspire the Government of India to implement the same all-women police stations nationwide. These stations, Dr. Kumari said, “will lead to gender sensitised policing and also give confidence and a higher comfort level to women to come forward and share their grievances with the police.”

On the one hand, all-women police stations might seem like a short-term, top-down fix to deeper and more widespread gender imbalances—much like women-only metro cars soothe the symptoms of patriarchy, not abolish its root causes. Admittedly, CSR’s own Gender Training Institute works with Delhi’s South District Police Force in a more long-term, bottom-up approach to gender justice in law enforcement: implementing station-by-station gender sensitisation training courses for both men and women police officers.

However, gender sensitisation is an ongoing and gradual process, with the final product impossible to perfectly determine ahead of time. So while all-women police stations don’t address the root causes of inequity, they are likely one vital component of a more inclusive, long-term strategy toward ensuring women receive the justice they deserve. Not to mention that these stations, which basically effect a quota, will allow more women to pursue careers in the police force, still a deeply patriarchal institution itself.

It’s important to ensure that the police personnel in these all women police stations are well equipped to handle the magnitude of cases that could pour into these police stations and should be specially trained in tacking issues of violence against women. Hence providing women victims with comfortable environments via all-women police stations, equipping women and men in the police force with better facilities to tackle gender based violence, and endeavouring to make wider and more long-lasting change through gender sensitisation of police officers will have to go hand in hand to transform India into a country where crime victims of all genders access and receive justice.

According to the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), Indian men rank dismally when it comes to attitudes about gender relations.

Aiming to address the male role in the fight for gender equality, IMAGES (the International Men and Gender Equity Survey) raises the question of whether men are really on board with the gender equality agenda. Are they changing their attitudes, practices and the ways they live their lives in relation to women—or is it just an act?

For an international comparison, the study involved statistically representative household samples from Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Mexico, Rwanda and India in 2009-10. Interviews conducted with men and women emphasized issues such as fatherhood, care giving, violence in intimate relationships, communication between spouses or partners and more.

While Indian men ranked dismally on every single issue, their attitudes toward Violence Against Women show little improvements in the fight to change patriarchal mindsets in India. Twenty-four percent of Indian men admitted to committing sexual violence during their lifetime: two and a half times more men than in any other studied country. Thirty-seven percent of Indian men had committed physical violence against a woman: Only Rwanda had a higher rate. To top it off, 68 perfect of Indian men agreed that “a women should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together,” compared to just four percent of men in Brazil.

The survey has already set off a heated debate from Indians, largely because the survey sampled households from only two metropolitan areas of India and entirely excluded rural areas. However, from what we’ve seen, “traditional” patriarchal attitudes are even more prevalent in rural communities—and even if the survey sample did not acknowledge the multitude of cultural and social forms in India, at least some men’s attitudes are far from supportive of gender equality.

Rhetoric and promises are free, but real action means real resources: If you want to know what a government really cares about, just take a look at how it spends its money.

Unfortunately, the proposed 2011-2012 budget of the current Indian government, unveiled by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee last month, suggests that women—their safety, their equality and their empowerment—are not top priorities. Despite continued economic growth and much talk about women’s issues throughout India, resources for key areas related to gender equality have actually been reduced. Most shockingly, the budget allocation for the welfare of rape victims has been cut by an astonishing 85 percent: from Rs. 53.30 crore (more than $11 million USD) to a paltry Rs.7.5 crore (less than $2 million USD).

These cuts come despite a continued rise in the number of rapes reported. Last year official statistics revealed that over 21,000 cases were reported in India, and many more go unreported. SangeetRege of the Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes has said that the level of spending in 2009 did not even cover the costs of daily medication for rape victims in India. To top that off, according to recent research, the majority of rape victims and women’s organisations are not even aware that they are entitled to financial assistance and other forms of support from the government.

Meanwhile, a scheme by the National Commission for Women to help victims with financial assistance and support services, established following Supreme Court directives a whopping six years ago, still awaits implementation. Such confusion and delays clearly prove that the Indian Government lacks direction on how to handle Violence Against Women.

Budget cuts to services for rape victims are not the only affront to India’s women: Inadequate increases in child development schemes and the decline in food subsidies received the most criticism in a panel discussion on the budget. NAC member and economist A.K. Shiva Kumar said, “Budgets can be visionary or inspirational. This one is certainly not.” Dr. Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at JNU, went as far to describe the budget as “anti-women”.

Despite continued economic development and extended spending in other areas, the Government is failing to address the rising tide of violence against women and the persisting inequalities between genders in India. According to the Prime Minister, “You cannot please all the people.” Let’s hope his Government doesn’t extend the same cavalier attitude to India’s millions of women.

By Leela Khanna, a Centre for Social Research intern from Colorado, USA. Leela will be attending Bard College in New York this autumn.

My cousin recently got married and as such, the festivities lived up to the expectations that come with an Indian marriage. Since she is the oldest of her three sisters, my aunt and uncle threw a wedding of a lifetime, but despite all the glamour it was hard to ignore that all aspects of Indian culture, including the coming together of two people, can be gender-biased.

I first noticed this trend when my cousins and I made a trip to Lucknow, where the groom’s family resides. No one had to say it, but it was fairly obvious that our trip’s purpose was to present the official dowry. It wasn’t as though the groom’s family had demanded it, but it was such an implicit tradition that no one, not even me, said anything against.

It was even more obvious during the wedding vows. As the pundit ji began reciting the vows, some of them stood out to me: The first was the vow that the man’s salary entirely belonged to his wife. The statement seemed strange to me, and never having been one to ponder in silence, I asked out loud, “Why would she want her husband’s salary, when she’s going to be making her own money?” It was an innocent question, but as everyone glared at me for interrupting the ceremony, I realized that the connotations of the vow were more complex: It clearly implied that women were expected to be completely economically dependent on their husbands. Was it old fashioned and sexist? Yes. Did that stop it from being a part of this 21^st century wedding? No.

The other vow that jarred my thinking was the promise that the wife’s life resided in the feet of her husband. When I quietly objected to the statement, my cousins were quick to defend the vow, saying that it applies to both parties and is more symbolic for devotional love. But it didn’t seem equal, because while the wife took that vow, the husband’s vow claimed that his life was in his wife’s heart. No feet were mentioned, and I was once again disappointed that despite how much progress women have made, marriages are still as gender biased as ever. While my family left no stone unturned when it came to throwing a pretty impressive party,it was hard for me not to ignore the sexism that is still so evident, even in something as holy as matrimony.

This morning, our Director, Dr. Ranjana Kumari was featured in an article that originally appeared in The Hindu on November 20, 2010. Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

Gender rights activist Dr. Ranjana Kumari tells Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty (international reporter from The Hindu) that girls have broken their silence finally and this is the first step towards social development.

“With women speaking out, we have achieved the first step towards social development,” Dr. Kumari declares. To explain the difference, Ranjana quotes an example. “There is this person who now works with us but I first met her as a victim of domestic violence. We found her at a goshala in Mehrauli, bleeding. Though her husband had beaten her black and blue she refused to get him arrested. I remember her telling me, ‘Thora samjha dijiye unhe‘. The case is no more like that; more and more women today don’t remain a victim.” And what is heart-warming “is that their families now stand by them. At times, there are women who come to see me accompanied by the

ir in-laws.” Drawing her understanding of things from working with women in the rural areas of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Ranjana also states, “The change is beginning to show there as well.”

However, decades ago, a suspected dowry death in the heart of the Capital, Karol Bagh, spurred Ranjana to tread the path of gender activism. “Looking back, I think that was my turning point,” she now says. Hailing from a family “where I was treated the same way as my brother”, she came, through that incident, face-to-face with the everyday reality of many women in our country.

Ranjana (centre above) recalls that on the call of well-known activist Promila Dandavate, she went along with fellow university students to a house in Karol Bagh, the scene of what was claimed by a woman’s in-laws to be a suicide. “The woman’s parents told Promila ji that they were getting demands for dowry and Promila ji was convinced it was a murder. We couldn’t do much, but for the first time I deeply felt what our women go through. It made me think.” A young Ranjana, then pursuing her post graduation in Political Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, didn’t take much time to join forces with Dandavate at Mahila Dakshata Samiti, where she rose to the post of general secretary and president in the years to come.

For long now, widening her horizon, Ranjana has taken keen interest in various gender-related subjects, including domestic violence. We have an Act in place against such a crime but Ranjana is cautious, “There is still a lot of confusion in the air. It sounds odd but the Judiciary itself is not sure of the different provisions of the Act; the magistrates are not sure of the kind of relief to be granted to a victim. The police too are not clear about their role. And then, there are no resources to fall back on regarding whatever related laws we have and how they are implemented.”

Yet another of Ranjana’s points of focus is gender equity in political participation, particularly in seeking 33 per cent reservation in Parliament. Not much has moved so far, but Ranjana is convinced, saying, “It will happen, it has to happen, and it will happen before I die.” As a political scientist, she thinks, “Our socio-political process is changing. With rising corruption, discredited politicians and economic crises, responsible leadership has to happen, and to achieve that one can’t keep women away from the process for too long.”

Read the full article on Dr. Kumari at The Hindu.