Gender Equality and Female Empowerment & Government Policies

Many of the obstacles to women’s empowerment and equity lie imbued in cultural norms. Even in present world, women experience such pressures, and major of them have become accustomed to being treated inferior. It’s time to make women empowered so they can participate in all the sector to enhance economic life.

By pushing them and showing belief in them we would build stronger economies and would be able to achieve globally agreed objectives for advancement and sustainability of women, and improve the quality of life for them, their families, and communities. Gender Equality and Female Empowerment is important.

Women Empowerment is essentially giving equal rights and increasing and improving women in all the fields of social, economic, political, and legal areas. This helps women to have control of themselves and take advantage of resources, assets, income, and their own time, as well as the capacity to oversee hazards and progress their financial status and prosperity.

The Challenges

It was a taboo for women to work outside homes, few centuries ago. They were not allowed to see the outer world beyond the walls of their houses. As time passed, they began to cross the boundaries of their houses to earn. But the area of work was limited. They remained restricted to jobs that required the motherly touch; such as, housekeeping, nursing, and teaching with time clock on their head. As they have to take care of their family along with it.

When it came to physical challenges like manufacturing units, they were not encouraged as they were considered week. Still, if there were few who stood out of the liege would get very few offers made to them. But then, neither they did have the confidence nor they were supported to take up such jobs.

Half of the work done by women is either unpaid, or nearly all of it is informal and unprotected. Despite the fact that maximum period of life women keeps working still their work is not justified. They are not encouraged and well represented in most segments, like business pioneers, offices, projects, etc.

Despite the fact that they include almost major percent of agricultural labor, but very less have control of land. It is an irony that women are moreover shut out of the formal financial system. If you’ll check around almost half of women do not have savings accounts for their own use, and those do have don’t access it themselves and almost 60 percent of women have no assets or property to their name.

It is unsurprising that women's contribution to the GDP has a lower share than the global. In addition, even today women face great physical insecurity which is stopping them from moving out. The crime rate against women is increasing every day. Almost 90 percent of women reported having experienced physical or sexual violence in public places.

Potential Areas of Focus

This debate is never ending I think it is all about approach and expectation. As we know new policies are made to educating all children, especially the girl child the most and we can see perception of people changing and they are getting more educated. Most women drop off after marriage or having children as they are not comfortable handling both areas that’s the reason their number in workplaces is dipping. They give priority to their family responsibilities over employment for them.

The major reason behind this is employment policies that do not cater to the basic needs of women. After gender equality became a global issue only now, that we have better policies and Structural reforms to welcome women back into the workforce post-career breaks. We just not only focus on education, employment or training but also encourage re-hiring from the pool and motivating such employees by giving them support and comfort at workplace so they could balance between work and home.

Despite so many progressive changes or the proclamation made for further improvement, women’s anticipation in the world of work is still not where it should be it is having a long way from becoming equal to men. Technology has still not advanced to the level where women are preferred to men or are comfortable to work with even the work culture is not favorable to them in factories.

Looking closer to work culture there is still gender gap in wages and social protection too. On the other hand, there are still misconceptions about the strength of women. They think women cannot work on the manufacturing units as there is lot of heavy lifting to do. Another reason is negative and discouraging social attitudes towards women working at plants. All this impacts the working environment.

Over the years, things have changed and women have pushed the boundaries to evolve as a confident gender. They are competing with the world and no longer wish for a nine to five job. They don’t want jobs for the sake of being women but want to work where they face challenges and get to explore or practice their skills. Yet their numbers in the manufacturing segment are the lowest they still do not prefer working here.

Even after so much effort and encouragement, the number of women working in manufacturing units and mechanical companies is not increasing. Women normally leave their job profile away because of factors like safety concerns as well as long and inflexible work hours.

The discrimination that women are facing from ages is primarily because of increased gender diversity and the belief that women cannot do heavy work on machines. Another issue is that they are considered less intelligent as men are where technical work is required and favoritism previses in workplace. There is a lot of inequality if we see in terms of basic amenities, fair wages, personal safety, and other factors. Though slow, evolution is happening

The Opportunity

Over the last five years, things have changed more importance is been given to women empowerment because of which there have been increased women participation. There are many social benefits of empowering women as they spend major percent of their income on their families. This leads to economically empowered, they give better-education to their children and healthier lifestyle. Among few private sectors who encouraged women employees reported that quality and production increased which lead to more profit as a result of engaging women in emerging markets.

Even initiatives from the Indian government such as PM Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Balika Samriddhi Yojana, Skill India, Make in India and gender-based quotas have stimulated positive changes in the society. Many companies and organizations have come up to set their skill development centers or tie up with government/education centers to provide skill training. By such initiative, companies can encourage women and would provide them the required skills to participate in the labor force. Even companies like Tata Motors, Samsung, and United Technologies have come up with ideas to encourage women employees in their work areas.

To achieve great feats in various fields women, have successfully defied traditions and stereotypes. Women employees actually add value on several parameters if we see from the point of view of an organizational. They have great eye for quality and detail orientation, and expertise with finesse in craftsmanship. They are keen to work in the factories, plants, and workshops as they possess skillsets for manufacturing. More women in the manufacturing however help change work culture at the plants. This, in turn, helps improve output, quality, and discipline, which are vital factors to enhance competitiveness.

Companies can harness by employing uncanny prospective local women near the plant sites. By giving them training and providing them specific skills we could empower women in the manufacturing sector is too.

Activities

In a growing economy changing workplace, ethics will help more females to move out of their comfort and work in a challenging atmosphere with security. To encourage them and provide them preferable work culture there should be an extensive maternity break, crèche facilities at factory sites and safe work environment to encourage women to take up jobs.

With the Make in India initiative the demand, especially for women employee, has increased. But the women still require basic amenities and atmosphere at workplace. Flexible work hours, crèche facilities, POSH (prevention of sexual harassment) committees, and female counselors, female shift supervisors at night, are some of the initiatives to attract and encourage women employees.

Increasing women’s participation would not only increase the labor but have a direct, positive impact on product quality and profitability. Best practices within the industry that would encourage and boost the morale of women employees are shared to leverage and educate the industry. These points would encourage women empowerment:

· Encourage CEOs to pledge their support towards female employees.

· The mentors in a company should lead the organizations by adopting gender equality policies

· Organisations that encourage women in their workforce should create ways to increase brand/ PR value with them

· Should encourage cross communication about success stories and policies, providing leverage in existing platforms and content.