The challenge of change: Women emerge champs

FLAGGING OFF A NEW ERA: Today, the Indian woman wears a new attitude, a new confidence.

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Rajdeep Sardesai

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That women could not take the decisions on their own did not mean that men were taking the decisions on their behalf without even consulting them. Usually only less than one-tenth of women reported being completely excluded from decision making. The most frequent response in all these spheres was that while they were not free to take decisions, they were consulted in these vital decisions.

That appears to be an improvement upon what used to happen earlier. In order to check this, we asked all the respondents to compare the decision-making capacity of women in their own family during their childhood to their position now. The responses are more positive and definite here.

Whether they live in nuclear family or in a joint family, our respondents agreed that women had much greater role in decision making now than in their childhood. The proportion was higher among the better off, but even among the poorest the verdict was not different.

Looking at the future, the verdict was even more positive. Nearly three-fourths of our respondents said that in the next generation women were likely to have greater say in decision making in their family. As expected, educated women were more optimistic, but even the non-literate were clearly positive.

This change has its flip side too, as there are new anxieties that affect Indian women. Some of these anxieties have to do with their looks.