The Views of Mill and Spencer:-
This dream of social reform and the building of a more ideal society was basic to the thinking of JOHN STUART MILL also. He believed that the phenomena of social living conformed to fixed laws just as other phenomena do. However, he recognized that the factors involved in society are so numerous and are changing so constantly that prediction is impossible.
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Thus, the methods of study used in other sciences, those of the laboratory, are not applicable to a study of society. By the method of deduction from many instances we can see tendencies in human social development and can point to them as guides to activity, he taught.
Believing this to be true, Mill held that the task of the social scientists was to investigate social groups to discover how the different forms of society develop and follow each other. Thus, by a study of history we can discover the laws of social progress and development.Then we can point to tendencies in the present social structure and predict that there is a high degree of probability that certain social results can be expected. For example, a study of ancient civilizations will show the reasons for their fall. The historian can point to factors in the social structure which contributed to the downfall of the civilization. Then, if an examination of a present society reveals the same factors as present and operating, it can be predicted with a degree of probability that that society will also fall.
Mill, as many of his predecessors, recognized that social well-being was necessary for individual well-being, that the individual was tied up with the group and that his happiness was dependent upon the status of the group. Thus, he dreamed of a society in which the happiness and prosperity of all was certain, and in which all would share the wealth of the group.
In his Autobiography he wrote, “While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labor, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to.
The social problem of the future, we considered to be: how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labor. Mill was struggling here with a problem that seems to have become more and more clear since his day: the problem of undeserved poverty and equally undeserved wealth.
Society, as he understood it, exists for the good of all individual members. Therefore, each must have freedom to work and be rewarded for his effort But, the raw materials of the world cannot be the exclusive possession of a few. These belong to all, and must be held by society as the representative of a;ll. Mill believed that a time would come when such would be the case and when society could guarantee economic freedom to all/
HERBERT SPENCER accepted the doctrine that each individual had the right to preserve himself. Indeed, he saw in nature a struggle in which the fittest survived and the less fit perished. Thus, men must be free to struggle and prove their fitness to survive. But, the survival of the fittest among human individuals depends, he argued, upon group life. Isolated from his fellows, even the fittest of men would perish. Therefore society is essential. This necessitates a course of activity in which each individual is restricted by the rights of others.
One may do what he wills in this struggle, but he must not violate the freedom of others. Everyone has the right to act to a certain limit, but no further. However, Spencer would not accept the socialistic thesis of Mill. For him, the state is greatly restricted. Its chief functions are to prevent internal aggression and to protect its members from foreign invasion. Beyond this it cannot go. To own the raw materials of the world and distribute them for the good of all was not a function of the state, to his thinking. In this direction he saw only danger, the danger of complete state control and the inevitable suppression of the individual. Competition among the members of society was to be permitted and encouraged. He believed that society, and the welfare of each individual, was better served by the establishment of as few restrictions upon competition as possible. In this, Spencer was an advocate of the laissez-faire theory. The best life, he taught, was one lived with only a minimum of regulation by the state.
Nietzsche’s Conception of the State:-
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE had no use for equality or anything that suggested democracy. The will to power is his dominant idea. In the struggle of the universe, this will to power is expressed; and the most powerful wins and has the right to win. If others are weaker and are unable to survive, that is good. The weak should be destroyed anyhow to make room for the strong. He recognizes differences among men and believes that these differences should be magnified.
The more powerful should rule, and the weaker should be ruled. Slavery seems perfectly natural to him; and he feels that women, being weaker than men, cannot be expected to have the same rights as men. Thus, he repudiates all that has been held by that long line of philosophers whose constant theme has been the equality of all men and the right of all to share equally in the goods of society. For Nietzsche, society is merely a field in which the strong have a chance to demonstrate their strength and win their rewards, while the weak are defeated and dragged from the arena to be disposed of completely. Since inequality is characteristic of nature and the natural state of man, it is unnatural to replace it with a forced equality.
The Views of Dewey and Recent Thinkers:-
JOHN DEWEY has shown at all times a strong interest in society and its problems. He constantly attempts to interpret the modern democratic point of view, to reveal its implications, and to forecast its future. He thinks of society, at its best, as a group of individuals sharing their experiences and growing through this sharing. The individual is to be free, but this freedom is not to be that of the older tradition.
As the individual becomes a true member of society he is incorporated into the group in such a way that he can contribute to the welfare of the whole and receive from the whole that which makes him truly human. At all times Dewey recognizes the importance of the individual. He holds that no one should ever be treated as an instrument, as a means to some goal that is not his. Rather, each one should be treated as an end in himself. “Respect for human personality is the chief doctrine of his philosophy.
This is, perhaps, the only absolute known to Dewey and his school of thought Man, Dewey holds, is man because he lives in society. To the extent that his activities in the group lead on to richer and more rewarding activities for him and for all members of the group, he is acting wisely and truly. Society, group life, is the way to this complete and full life since here mutual sharing is possible.
Thus, we may say that two points of view are basic to the great mass of recent writing which deals with matters of the state. On the one hand are those who follow more or less completely the lead of men from Plato to Nietzsche and hold that inequality is the natural state of man. This being the case, each member of the state must take his proper place in the social structure. It is perfectly right and natural, these men argue, that some should be rulers and others should be ruled, and the ruled should not question the acts of the rulers.
Such writers spurn democracy, socialism, and all other systems of human equality and freedom. Plato saw democracy as the open door to anarchy. He would have the philosopher-king rule, and all others take their places in a tightly organized system.
Hegel carried this idea one step further when he held that certain states or groups of individuals were by nature superior to others and therefore should rule them. This, of course, is the basic point of view of all totalitarian systems of government.
Opposed to this entire trend is the democratic tradition which grew out of the Renaissance and came to fruition in the work of men like Locke, Rousseau, and their followers. It holds that all men are by nature free and equal/ This position is basic to the French Revolution and the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
It affirms that there are certain rights with which all men are endowed by their Creator, and which cannot be taken away from them under any conditions. These rights have been listed in many ways, chief of which is “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’* This position led to the influential doctrine of laissez faire, a doctrine which characterized the early years of development in the United States. It limited the authority of the state and magnified the freedom of the individual to work and hold the rewards of his work.
Today philosophers are seeking to discover a balance between these two positions. Complete freedom leads to a crass individualism in which the powerful oppress the weak. Complete regulation leads to the same end, but the oppressors are those who happen to gain control of the government. Dewey—and many modern thinkers agree in this— seeks a freedom within the social group by which both the individual and the group will prosper. A great many of the social experiments of the present are in this direction, seeking to balance individual interests and group interests in such a way that both will be served and neither sacrificed to the other.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
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The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.