Women, Society and Development

What the official syllabus says

GPSC Main Examination, Paper IV: General Studies-I, (C) Indian Society.

• Women, Society, and Development: Women: Changing role of women in Indian society, Issues, Strategies and Solutions. Role of gender in decision making at different levels.

Topics in detail

The line asks for issues, strategies and solutions. Build answers around a problem, its causes, what has been done, and what more can be done.

Changing role of women

• Women in reform movements and the freedom struggle
• Education, employment and the rise of women in professions and enterprise
• Women's self-help groups and cooperatives
• Women in science, sport, armed forces and public life

Issues

• Sex ratio and child sex ratio; female foeticide
• Dowry, domestic violence, sexual harassment, trafficking
• Health: anaemia, maternal mortality, nutrition
• Low labour force participation; unpaid and informal work; the wage gap
• Digital divide and safety in public spaces

Strategies and solutions

• Constitutional provisions: Articles 14, 15(3), 39, 42, 51A(e), 243D and 243T
• Laws: Dowry Prohibition Act (1961), Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005), Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (2013), Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act (2017), Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act
• Institutions: National Commission for Women and state women's commissions
• Schemes by type: girl child and education, maternal health, livelihoods and credit, safety
• Gender budgeting; data and monitoring

Gender in decision-making

• Within the household: control over income and assets
• Local bodies: one-third reservation under the 73rd and 74th Amendments, and higher reservation in many states; the 'sarpanch-pati' problem
• Legislatures: the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023, reserving one-third of seats
• Corporate boards, bureaucracy, judiciary

Approaches to women and development

• From welfare to development, empowerment and gender mainstreaming
• Women's collective action: the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), founded by Ela Bhatt in Ahmedabad (1972)
• Women in cooperatives: dairy cooperatives of Gujarat; Lijjat Papad
• Microfinance and self-help group federations

Measuring progress

• Sex ratio at birth, female literacy, maternal mortality
• National Family Health Survey data
• Female labour force participation
• Women's representation in elected bodies

Women of Gujarat in public life (historical)

• Kasturba Gandhi and the women of the ashrams
• Anasuya Sarabhai and the labour movement in Ahmedabad
• Mithuben Petit and the salt satyagraha
• Hansa Mehta: member of the Constituent Assembly and of the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Mridula Sarabhai and relief work after Partition

Overlaps

• Social sector and vulnerable sections: General Studies-II.