The Plague of Gender Inequality

PGI's media department has a daily ritual of scanning news sources in our target area of South India for issues germane to our initiatives. Occasionally they find something that is not exactly on point, but somehow is on point. Today we clipped a QA column wherein readers ask the columnist lawyer a question.  The question related to distribution of a father's real property among his six children.  That's not the interesting issue. It was the way in which the question was asked, that was begging a certain answer. The six children were specifically identified as four sons and two daughters. The rest of the question went through the lines of consanguinity regarding only the daughters...one deceased with a surviving daughter, the other with a daughter who had one child, also a girl.

The author of the question does not come right out and ask whether the sons' claim somehow trump the daughters' claim, but it's clearly implied.  In fact, the question could be rewritten without reference to gender and it would have been exactly the same question.  This is disturbing and is reflective of the social acceptability of making gender differentiation when it is not material nor relevant. (Otherwise, the questioner would have never sent his question to a widely circulated newspaper.) Dodging the issue, the column lawyer plainly cites the (gender neutral) law splits estates in equal shares. Period. Full stop.  But law is not always the mind of its culture. 

In juxtaposition, we were also pleased to find in today's news that the India Supreme Court is taking a firm position on 'dowry deaths' (more accurately dowry murders) and the recent inexplicable rise of the barberous act of husbands dousing their spouses (and sometimes children) with kerosene and lighting them afire.

PGI sincerely urges all readers to visit the new UN website "Every Woman, Every Child" http://www.everywomaneverychild.org/pages?pageid=3 and get involved.  Nearly every project we have worked on and reviewed has always had an underlying gender issue that was in need of address.  There is much work to be done on this front. There are some tremendous stories of success (such as woman self help groups and financial clubs) but these are too few, far between. The process of global gender equality must be accelerated for the preservation of society and humanity on our ever crowding planet.



Fair Use Notice: This post contains copyrighted material that has not been authorized by the copyright owners. PGI believes this educational use on the Green Eye Web-blog constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.) If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified or wants us to link to their web site which we routinely do as a business practice notwithstanding.