Women’s Portrait through Gender Lenses

Abstract

Women as a group have long been treated unequal to men, and subjugated and exploited just because they are women. Till now, women have been the most marginalized and vulnerable group across the societies and economic systems. However, because of the sustained and dedicated works of Feminism, now their right to equality has been recognized and legalized in almost all the countries. Over the past 100 years, since Feminism began as a moment and theory, now we have a large body of knowledge and a vast experience to understand and redress women’s inequality and injustice significantly.

The present paper is an attempt to represent the picture of women from a gender perspective. Gender analysis shows that ‘Women are not born weak, they are made weak’. I myself fully subscribe to this view. Although the biological differences between men and women cannot be denied, but despite this women are as efficient as men. They are not born by nature inferior to men in reason, intellect, talent or in any other respect. In fact, they are made weak by religious, cultural, socio-economic and other conditions prevailing in the patriarchal society.

Sexual and biological difference is a genuine difference but should not be a ground to distribute burden and benefit. The concept of women equality assumes that women are different from men, but treated as weaker and need privileges to be at par with men.

This paper also tries to explore the factors responsible for the inferior and secondary status of women in society and suggests some serious strategies to enhance the status of women and to make them enable to live a dignified life.

Citation

Saxena, K. (2015), "Women’s Portrait through Gender Lenses", Enabling Gender Equality: Future Generations of the Global World (Research in Political Sociology, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 29-37. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520150000023002