Depictions of Women and Minorities- Position Paper III

The status of an Indian women in the Indian society is strongly connected to being family oriental, as well as having big households and big families that come with it. Patrilineal has played a big part in the Indian society and has also played a part in an Indian’s woman and her new husband’s life. Indian families are often classified as patrilineal due to how they use methods and a certain system after a bride is married to a new man and into a new family. According to research, many families in the Indian society has grown because of the patrilineal system. Though Indian women have been subjected to changes over the years, practices such as Female Infanticide, Dowry, and Child Marriage hasn’t slowed down in running it’s course in the Indian’s women society.

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Students often learn about female infanticide in a learning course such as social problems. Female infanticide is a big social problem in India today. Female Infanticide is a crime against children (babies) who are between the ages of 0-1 years old. Female Infanticide is a killing of a newborn child that is a female. This crime is common for china as well. India counts this crime as abortion according to facts and research about their government. The reason behind female infanticide is mostly related to practical and cultural rituals rather than it relating to religion in Indian.

India is reported as the highest country in the world that has dowry deaths. Dowry deaths are deaths of married women who are murdered or driven to suicide by consistent torture and harassment by their husbands. Dowry in itself is property or money brought into a marriage by a bride to her husband. The transfers of Dowry are money, gifts, and most importantly parental property. A married women having a dispute over her dowry with her husband or in laws can put her in a very dangerous situation, especially in her home. There are 1.4 deaths per 100,000 women in India relating to dowry incidents. Dowry was reported as prohibited in the Indian society in the year of 1961, but the issue still stands tall because it has become am cultural aspect in the Indian society, especially for a man’s benefit. In April, 2017, it was reported that at least 21 lives were lost to dowry death in India.

Child marriage and rape have also been two common dysfunctional factors in India over the years. Child marriage in the Indian society by law is considered to be marriage with a female who is under the age of 18 years old. Child marriage effects the Indian society as a whole simply because it causes more poverty and is very active in gender discrimination. Though child marriage is technically illegal in India, it is still yet an illegal act that is being cultural used by the Indian society. Child marriage is most likely to occur in a girl’s family who is poor, if the young lady is attractive to a wealthy and older man, her family is most likely to marry her off to that man to help the poor family pay off expenses and live a better lifestyle than before. According to census data, at least quarter of girls age 10-17 in India are married. Some Indian girls as of age 9 are forced to marry and give up their education to stay on and do chores as well as perform wifely duties. India Photographer voices her opinion about the disgraceful epidemic, “What do you expect a kid who’s 15 to understand about marriage or relationships or managing a house?” asks Khandelwal. “They’re not educated, and that trickles down to their own kids. They already don't have money, and they’re already too young to have kids. It’s a vicious cycle. Will they ever be able to come out of this?” the photographer explained how she plans to continue to use her camera to help expose such illegal actions in Indian.

How women are treated in Indian regarding to rape is a touchy topic. Rape is known to be the fourth most common crime in Indian toward women. In, December, 2012 an Indian woman was ganged raped, and beaten with iron rods on the same bus she was traveling with her boyfriend. As a result, the case, more women were willing to report rape, but that hasn’t stopped the crisis at all. When women are raped in the Indian society they aren’t necessarily treated fairly or with comfort. One Indian girl reported rape and her family disowned her. In Indian women reports rape every 15 minutes in a day. It is kept in mind that most rape cases that women file a report on are not looked at or looked into accordingly.

India has been labeled as the most dangerous country for women in the past decades due to multiple issues and unstoppable crisis. It has been stated that the country is in denial about the fact that women are treated poorly and incomparable to men in their society. Women in Indian aren’t necessarily free, because they don’t feel safe or protected most of the time. Even though women in India have learned to cope endless depression, and anxiety due to how society and man treats them, it still isn’t right or serves any justice for their way of living. The irony is that media coverage has helped expose this issue, but what actions, what more actions can be taken into consideration for the issues to completely stop?