Tears of the past:
Looking through the lens of past,there were seven major areas of discrimination against women in India:
• Malnutrition:
India had exceptionally high rates of child malnutrition, because tradition in India requires that women eat last and least throughout their lives, even when pregnant and lactating. Malnourished women gave birth to malnourished children, perpetuating the cycle.
• Poor Health:
Females received less health care than males. Many women died in childbirth of easily prevented complications. Working conditions and environmental pollution further impaired women's health.
Lack of education:
Families were far less likely to educate girls than boys, and far more likely to pull them out of school, either to help out at home or from fear of violence.
• Overwork:
Women work longer hours and their work is more arduous than men's, yet their work was unrecognized. Men report that "women, like children, eat and do nothing." Technological progress in agriculture has had a negative impact on women.
• Unskilled:
In women's primary employment sector - agriculture - extension services overlooked women.
• Mistreatment:
In the past there had been an alarming rise in atrocities against women in India, in terms of rapes, assaults and dowry-related murders. Fear of violence suppressed the aspirations of all women. Female infanticide and sex-selective abortions are additional forms of violence that reflect the devaluing of females in Indian society.
• Powerlessness:
While women were guaranteed equality under the constitution, legal protection had little effect in the face of prevailing patriarchal traditions. Women lacked power to decide who they will marry, and were often married off as children. Legal loopholes were used to deny women inheritance rights....