Date: 17/03/2023

Relevance: GS-1 and GS-2: Role of Women and Women’s Organisation; Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections of the population by the Centre and States and the Performance of these Schemes;

Key Phrases: Sustainable model for women's leadership, gender equality, Women in STEM education and workforce, EdTech solutions, Redistributing care work, Women's empowerment, and decision-making.

Why in News?

• Today the world is home to a transformative generation of 900 million adolescent girls and young women poised to shape the future of work and growth.
• If this cohort of young women could be equipped with the right resources and opportunities to nurture 21st-century skills, they would become the largest segment of women leaders, change-makers, entrepreneurs, and innovators in history.

Early cultivation of agency:

• Given the numerous socio-economic barriers that adolescent girls face from their earliest years, there is a need to cultivate their agency through education systems that expose them to new-age skill sets, critical thinking, and leadership qualities from an early age.
• To unleash the gender dividend and create conditions for female leadership to flourish, women at all levels of society must have inclusion in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), bodily autonomy and safety, shared responsibility within the household, and equal participation in decision-making spaces.

India's initiatives for gender equality:

• India, home to one of the largest generations of girls and young women, has undertaken wide-ranging initiatives across the critical domains of education, health, digital and financial inclusion, and leadership building, and has established feasible frameworks to help in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 5, which envisions the world to be a more gender equal place by 2030.

Scaling EdTech solutions:

• As the access to digital technology increasingly becomes an arena of opportunity and basic service for children and young people, EdTech gives us tools to bridge part of the accessibility gap in education through hybrid learning models, even where girls’ access to schooling is restricted by harmful norms.
• Building and scaling up solutions customized to the language, cultural nuances, and Internet accessibility of individual communities can give girls equal access to knowledge through digital inclusion.

Women's Representation in STEM:

• Increasing women's representation in STEM fields is crucial for promoting gender equality and reducing the gender gap in the workforce. However, there are several challenges that prevent women from participating in these fields.
• Current Status:
  • Over 43% of Indian STEM graduates are women, according to the World Bank.
  • However, their representation in the workforce and tech leadership is not proportionate.
  • Prevailing stereotypes characterize STEM fields as a traditionally masculine domain, which discourages girls from pursuing STEM education.
• Why increased representation of women in STEM education does not necessarily translate into work participation?
  • Gender norms that disproportionately allocate domestic and care responsibilities primarily to women.
  • Men are seen as leaders of STEM, finance, and entrepreneurial fields in the public perception.
  • Institutional mechanisms such as inadequate maternity leave, few flexible work arrangements, and lack of childcare facilities in the workplace.
• Countering Stereotypes:
  • Actively countering these stereotypes calls for the inclusion of grade-appropriate STEM, financial education, and entrepreneurship syllabi into the educational curriculum for girls.
  • Introducing elements such as Olympiads, innovation labs, boot camps, and competitions can expose girls to practical applications and inspire them to build solutions to challenges in their ecosystem.

Empowering Women to make decisions:

• Women need to be empowered to make decisions about their bodies, including:
  • whether to have sexual relations or not,
  • when to initiate sexual relations,
  • whether to use contraceptives or not and
  • to seek health care when needed.
• Women also need to be free from all forms of violence and harassment.
• Providing these basic conditions is critical to enabling women and young girls to chart the trajectory of their personal and professional lives.

Promoting Leadership through Sports:

• Sporting activities promote leadership, self-sufficiency, and teamwork.
• The inclusion of adolescent girls and young women in sports can go a long way in building their
  • self-confidence,
  • strengthening self-belief, and
  • imparting the nuances of teamwork.
• Initiatives such as the National Sports Policy and inclusion programmes for children from vulnerable communities have seen remarkable success.

Redistribute care work

• Disproportionate Care Burden:
  • From domestic chores to caring for loved ones, the burden of thriving families, communities, and economies largely falls on women.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this problem by bringing to light the disproportionate care burden that women bear.
  • Socio-cultural norms in India relegate women to unpaid reproductive labour, which worsens the situation.
• Redistributing Unpaid Care and Domestic Work:
  • It is crucial to recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work to promote equal economic opportunities and outcomes for women.
  • Policies that provide services, social protection, and basic infrastructure are needed to accelerate progress on women's economic empowerment.
  • Encouraging the sharing of domestic and care work between men and women, and creating more paid jobs in the care economy can also help.

Conclusion:

• A multi-pronged approach across enhancing employability, sport for leadership, digital innovations and learning, and bodily autonomy is the key to strengthening leadership abilities among adolescent girls and young women.
• Nurturing girls’ leadership abilities is our collective first step towards breaking down restrictive gender norms and barriers for truly gender-transformative growth and accelerating girl-and-women-led progress across the Sustainable Development Goals for India and the world.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. How can a sustainable model for women's leadership be nurtured, and what are the key barriers and solutions to achieving this goal in India and around the world?