A Lifetime of Subjugation

If you want me to tell you what a nation is like ... tell me the position of women in that country.
— Jawaharlal Nehru

A female in rural India faces some of the harshest discrimination in the world. Every phase of her life may be shaped by malnutrition, denial of selfhood and lack of voice in the decisions that affect her life.

The social and economic conditions that subjugate women are expressed and reinforced by the institution of dowry. To secure a husband for their daughter, a girl’s parents must pay up to five times their annual income in dowry "gifts" to the husband’s family. As a result, having a girl is a great burden, while having a boy is a great asset. Although dowry has been illegal since 1961, its practice is flourishing and on the rise, cutting across all classes and castes.

For most women, there is no way out. Subjugation and submission are a pervasive pattern, enforced by violence and the threat of violence throughout their lives (see page 12).

• Unwanted before birth. Often, a baby girl in India is born into a family that had wished and prayed for a boy. Increasingly, girls are not born at all. Modern science allows parents to determine the sex of their child before birth — and abort it if it is a girl. In some areas, midwives or relatives simply murder the girl child — often considering it a "mercy killing". As a result, India now has a population ratio of 900 females (and in some areas as low as 600 females) to1,000 males.

• Deprived as a baby girl. Girls may be breast-fed for a shorter time than boys — in the hope that the mother can soon become pregnant with a boy. They are fed less food, and lower quality food. When girls become ill, they are less likely to receive medical care than boys — resulting in under-five mortality rates 43 per cent higher for girls than boys.

• A childhood of drudgery. By age five, girls carry adult responsibilities both inside and outside the home. At home, a girl cares for her younger siblings, and for her sick or pregnant mother. She fetches water, firewood and fodder, and makes dung cakes for fuel. Outside, she works in agriculture and wage labour. Thirty per cent of women’s work burden in India is carried by girls between 6 and 11 years old. Education and play are nearly unthinkable.

• Adolescence: health crisis and sexual violation. Girls who reach puberty face a new set of harrowing and untreated problems of physical and mental health. At the very time her body needs more nutrition, she receives less. Adolescent girls suffer high rates of anaemia, vitamin deficiencies, tuberculosis, gynaecological problems, urinary tract infections and irregular menstruation. As almost everything in her life tells her she is worthless, her mental health deteriorates. Adolescent girls run high risks of sexual assault.

• Marriage: a new cycle of subjugation. She is married young, to an older man she has never met, and into a family and a village where she is a stranger. Early and frequent pregnancies about which she has little choice — and during which she rarely receives medical care — put her health at risk. She is isolated — often not permitted to leave the household, and thus unable to be assisted, supported or protected by other women.

• Adulthood: overworked and undernourished. A woman in India may work twice as many hours as her husband (see page 10). Her triple burden — child-rearing, unpaid household work and wage labour outside the home — goes unrecognised and unsupported. She is often malnourished throughout her life (see page 8).

• Outcast in widowhood. When her husband dies, a woman may be socially, economically and emotionally outcast, stripped of her only place in society. A widow in India is often forced to shave her head, eat only one meal per day and sleep on the floor.