Women in Poverty and Political Participation

The lack of social development concerning women in India today is no secret. Low levels of literacy, high infant mortality, and low life expectancy affect women in all regions of India, particularly those in rural locations and the urban poor. Indian women are often trapped in a cycle of poverty that seems to have no end.
Indian national legislation states that women should account for one third of participants in legislative bodies, such as at the national Parliament level all the way to rural Panchayats. While this token figure seems to be a beginning step towards equal political participation, the truth is that even when enforced, women’s political participation is still lacking in several ways. Women in socially underdeveloped situations are often unable to participate in politics. In conservative communities they are barred from participation by their husbands, and uneducated and illiterate females lack access to the information necessary to make informed political decisions.
Studies have shown that women are more sensitive to the social development needs of a community, such as in the fields of health and education. Without participation in the democratic realm however, many of women’s primary concerns will fail to be addressed by local government due to lack of significant, local level pressure from citizens. Poor uneducated women are unable to exert the political pressure needed at a community level, in the geographical areas where social development indicators are lowest.
The women that do participate in politics are often token figures, or are marginalized to areas that are considered to be the ‘realm of women’. This is not to say there have been no legitimately powerful female politicians, India boasts a female former prime minister, Indira Ghandi, and the number of Indian women running for party seats is rising. However to see fair representation lead to improved social development, there needs to be a bottom up rise in the number of women involved in politics. Despite the increasing number of women politicians, social development indicators have been slow to rise, and this reflects a lack of real political participation from women at a grassroots level.
As long as women’s participation is marginalized in politics, real social change may be slow to come.
Heather Patterson