GS Mains Model Question & Answer: Assess the contribution of
contemporary women movement in women empowerment. Comment
Q. Assess the contribution of contemporary women
movement in women empowerment. Comment.
Model Answer:
Women movement described as a prolonged and sustained movement which has
clear vision , effective leadership, a set of institutionalized roles and
oraganisation for the upliftment of women’s condition in the society.
Demand of the contemporary women movement:
- Equality not merely for justice but for development
- Focus should be on economic empowerment of women
- Child bearing should be shared as a social responsibility
- Recognition of household work as national productivity
- Marriage and motherhood should not be a disability
- Emancipation of women should be linked to social emancipation
- Special temporary measures for de facto equality.
The year 1975 saw the development of a number of feminist activities in
various parts of the country. his is seen as an indirect result of the United
Nations declaration of 1975 as the International Women’s Year. Inspired by the
formation of the Progressive Organization of Women (POW) in Hyderabad, Maoist
women formed the Purogami Stree Sangathana (Progressive Women’s Organization) in
Pune, and the Stree Mukti Sangathana (Women’s Liberation Organization) in
Bombay. On 8 March 1975, the International Women’s day was celebrated for the
first time by both party-based and autonomous organizations in Maharashtra.
There were three different streams of feminist orientations:
i. The Liberal Stream focuses on demanding reforms in those aspects of the
polity which specifically affect women.
ii. The Leftist Stream situates oppression of women within a holistic analysis
of the general structure of oppression and calls for a coming together of
specific movements for social change in order to effect the revolutionary
transformation of society.
iii. The Radical Feminists concentrate on defining the development of feminity
and masculinity in society as fundamental polarities, and experimented with
reclaiming traditional sources of women’s strength, creativity, and so on.
Since the pre-independence time, freedom struggle and thereafter, women’s
organizations were linked to political parties.
Achievement:
- Rights of equality in our constitution
- Passing of maternity act
- Women sexual harassment act at work place.
- Implementation in companies act.etc.
- (you can add more reforms done in the context of women)
