Women want to change, Society needs to change

The GGG index assesses the advancement of nations in achieving gender equality across four core dimensions, each containing subcategories:

1. Economic Participation and Opportunity
2. Educational Attainment
3. Health and Survival
4. Political Empowerment

For each of the four sub-indices, as well as the comprehensive index, the GGG index assigns scores that range from 0 to 1. A score of 1 signifies complete gender parity, while 0 represents absolute gender inequality. This index holds the distinction of being the most longstanding metric, continuously monitoring the progress made in closing these disparities since its establishment in 2006.

Objectives: The primary aims of the GGG index are to act as a guiding tool for monitoring the evolution of gender gaps in health, education, the economy, and politics. Through this yearly benchmark, stakeholders within each country can identify and prioritize areas of concern that are relevant to their specific economic, political, and cultural contexts.

Key Findings of the report:

Global Gender Gap Score: The 2023 global gender gap score is 68.4%, showing a slight improvement of 0.3% compared to the previous year. At the current pace of change, it would take 131 years to reach complete gender equality, indicating a notable slowdown in the overall rate of progress.

Leading Countries: Iceland remains the most gender-equal nation for the 14th consecutive year, with a gender gap score of 91.2%. It is the sole country to have bridged over 90% of its gender gap. Joining Iceland in the top five are three other Nordic countries: Norway (87.9%), Finland (86.3%), and Sweden (81.5%), underscoring their strong commitment to gender equity.

Health and Survival: Globally, the gender gap in health and survival has nearly closed, reaching 96%.

Political Empowerment: The gender gap in political empowerment remains substantial, with a global closure rate of 22.1% and an estimated 162-year timeline for complete closure.

Educational Attainment: The gender gap in educational attainment has narrowed by 95.2%, with significant progress made from 2006 to 2023. The projected time for full closure of the educational gender gap is 16 years.

Economic Participation and Opportunity: On a global scale, the gender gap in economic participation and opportunity stands at 60.1%, indicating persistent challenges in achieving gender equality in the workforce. The projected time for closure of this gap is 169 years.

3. India's Performance in the Gender Global Report 2023

India's Ranking: India has demonstrated significant progress, moving from 135th place in the 2022 report to 127th out of 146 countries in the 2023 edition, signifying an enhancement in its position.

Comparison with Neighboring Countries: In comparison to its neighbors, India fares as follows: Pakistan is ranked at 142, Bangladesh at 59, China at 107, Nepal at 116, Sri Lanka at 115, and Bhutan at 103.

India has made an improvement of 1.4 percentage points and has climbed eight positions since the previous edition, marking a partial recovery towards its 2020 gender parity level. The overall gender gap in India stands at 64.3% at present.

Gender Parity in Education: India has achieved gender parity in enrollment at all levels of education, which reflects a positive development within the country's educational system.

Economic Participation and Opportunity: India still faces challenges in achieving gender parity in economic participation and opportunity, with only 36.7% parity in this domain. While there has been progress in wage and income parity, there is a slight decrease in the representation of women in senior positions and technical roles.

Political Empowerment: India has made advancements in political empowerment, achieving 25.3% gender parity in this sphere. Women now represent 15.1% of parliamentarians, marking the highest level of representation since the inaugural report in 2006. Notably, 18 countries, including Bolivia (50.4%), India (44.4%), and France (42.3%), have achieved women's representation exceeding 40% in local governance.

Health and Survival: India has shown a 1.9% improvement in its sex ratio at birth after more than a decade of slow progress. However, India, along with Vietnam, China, and Azerbaijan, still faces relatively low scores in the Health and Survival sub-index due to skewed sex ratios.

4. Women reservation

• The basic premise of advocates against reservation is that it will bring down competence. Alas, this is a completely misplaced notion as statistics show that women perform much better than men in academics, more women graduate from colleges than men, and more women enter the workforce than men.
• In contrast to this trend, the number of women sharply spirals downwards in leadership positions not because of their incompetence, but because of the hegemony of me
• Global trends exhibit a sharp reduction in the age of political leaders. But can a common Indian woman, just by her commitment and ambition, dream of becoming the Prime Minister of India at the age of 37
• Historical evidence points out that but for a few Taleb’s black swans, all women who have assumed leadership roles did not get there by sheer industry, competence and intelligence
• They were allowed only for the convenience of men who were disqualified from assuming these positions, or, if it served some political agenda. In the Indian political arena women leaders were, most often, convenient choices
• Historical evidence also shows that most women who make it to leadership positions have a mix of privileges of higher education, the support of influential mentors or families, or belong to upper classes or castes
• Despite these privileges, women also take longer to assume leadership positions. Even Indira Gandhi, who had the highest elitist advantage and was politically active from an early age, was not fielded as the Prime Minister on Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in 1964, and had to wait till Shastri’s death in 1966 to assume the prime ministerial role.

4. Conclusion

Across the world, women are appreciated by society in supportive and emotional roles, but very seldom in leadership roles. The world hates and denigrates ambitious women. Take, for example, the case of Hillary Clinton. There is not an iota of doubt that her political experience and acumen trumped Donald Trump’s competencies. However, America, the world’s so-called top democracy, chose an inexperienced Mr. Trump over her to lead them