Gender Inequality and Women’s Empowerment

The book attempts to highlight the discrimination against women and removal of discrimination through empowerment of women. Discrimination against women is found in every culture and society in varying degrees. It is manifested in various domains of life and activity: economic, social, political and religious. As a result of gender discrimination, the status of women is subordinate to men and they have little access to education, food, nutrition, health care, employment and wages. Empowerment of women involves the improvement of their status in the family, community and society. It ensures women’s accessibility to modern development facilities and extends their participation in social, economic and political process and decision-making. Efforts have been made by the government to empower women by adopting some legislative measures and development programmes for women. The book is largely the outcome of One-Day Regional Seminar on gender inequality held at the Department of Social Studies and Rural Development (Palli Charcha Kendra), Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan in February, 2004. The authors deal with aspects of gender inequality both in text and context, process of women’s empowerment, the accessibility of women to development facilities as well as their actual power positions in the society and state. Problems of the gender empowerment measure in the context of rural India have been noted and a set of indicators has been suggested to confront the reality. The book would find clientele among students, scholars, teachers, feminists, policy makers and development workers having interest on women upliftment and empowerment.