Tedx: Need for Men’s Rights

Men’s Rights a concept which sounds alien in this modern era. We hear so much about rights for various groups, that we have ended up trampling on the most basic fundamental rights for men. Still on the backdrop of patriarchy we keep giving them the short end of the stick and ask them to ‘man up’.

Recently in an address in Tedx, the discussion was on Need for Men’s Rights.

The speaker very articulately explains the distinction between economic power and decision making power. He explains this concept with the story of Shantanu. Certain parameters can be used as a barometer to measure the health and quality of living of men in the society.

• Life Expectancy
• Unnatural Deaths
• Suicides
• Homelessness
• Education

There is something very wrong with the society with majority of child labour being boys, victims of violent crimes being men and violent crimes committed by women on the rise. The discussion then went to if we are really living in a patriarchal society and the rape laws of India.

The presentation used at the address is given below:

Need for Mens Rights_TEDxJuhu

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Higher Education: Gender Biasness Myth

In the past, there have been many debates that women are not allowed to study due to the patriarchal mindset. Let us try to break this myth of women’s higher studies.

The measure that is used to calculate parity in education is the Gender Parity Index (GPI), which is the ratio of Female Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) to Male GER. A GPI of 1 indicates parity between the sexes.

Select states of India having the highest GPIs are given below:

State	GPI
Kerala	1.39
Meghalaya	1.28
Goa	1.16
Uttar Pradesh	1.16
Jammu and Kashmir	1.10
Manipur	1.07
Uttrakhand	1.05
Chandigarh	1.03
Assam	0.98
Haryana	0.96
Delhi	0.94
Himachal Pradesh	0.94

In the above table it can be clearly seen that many states have a GPI of over 1, which means that more percentage of women (of the total women) are being imparted higher education as compared to men. It also implies that there is no biasism in imparting higher education for women.

It would be interesting to note that in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand and UT of Chandirarh, the GPI is over 1, implying women are more educated than men. In the states of Haryana and Delhi, the GPI is nearly equal to 1 implying no bias in educating women in these states and they are equally qualified as compared to their male counterparts.

Could anyone explain to me how does patriarchy stop women from being educated? As can be seen above, states which are touted to be highly patriarchal have a GPI of above 1 or nearly equal to 1. Further, the data also rebuts the myth that women are deliberately not sent to schools or refrained from higher studies.

Let us all Stand Up for a Cause…

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Source: Table 11a: All India Survey on Higher Education 2011-12 (Provisional), Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Related articles

• Female Literacy rate rising more than Male Literacy rate

Female Literacy rate rising more than Male Literacy rate

I was recently reading a newspaper article where it stated that ‘India will take around 56 years to achieve female youth literacy‘.

On reading the headline, I was quite intrigued and found out data of literacy rates in India. The census comes out with the literacy rates, and as per its data the literacy rates are given below:

	10-14 Years		15-19 Years
Year	Female	Male	Female	Male
2001	77.0%	86.0%	72.7%	85.0%
2011	90.0%	92.2%	86.2%	91.2%
Growth in % Pts.	13.0%	6.2%	13.5%	6.2%

As seen above in the age group of 10-14 years, the literacy rates for females and males is 90% and 92.2% respectively, which is not a wide difference. In the past decade (from 2001-2011), the growth in % points in literacy rates for females has been more that 2x times he growth in literacy rates for males. The growth in literacy has been 13% for females and 6.2% for males. Implying that the rate of literacy is higher for girls as compared to boys.

We have just discussed literacy (which means learning how to read and write), let’s now discuss regarding education (ie. studying in class I – XII). Here the parameter to be referred to is the Gender Parity Index (GPI), which is the ratio of female Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) to male GER. A GPI of 1 indicates parity between the sexes.

For classes I-XII, the GPI has increased from 0.82 from 2001-02 to 0.96 in 2009-10, implying that the education level for girls and boys are nearly at par. For class I-VII, the GPI for 2009-10 is 0.98. The GPI of various classes is given below:

	Class I-V	Class I-VIII	Class I-XII
2001-02	0.83	0.81	0.82
2009-10	1.00	0.98	0.96

As seen above the GPI has considerably risen and has become 1.0 for Class I-V. 

Therefore, female youth literacy and education does not seem to be distant dream as shown in the data above.

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Sources:

1) Statistics of School Education 209-10, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

2) YouthInfo India: ORGI_Census 2001, Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi 2001 and 2011

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Bonus marks given to Women Candidates in competitive exams

I read this news article today. The news article talked about IIM-C giving bonus marks to women aspirants. Now these bonus marks were given not because they had more work experience, degrees or extra curriculars, but because they were ‘Women’.

The CAT entrance exam for the IIMs is a professional exam and giving bonus marks in an entrance exam to a few candidates based on gender is against all norms of equality and is unconstitutional. Further, quality of student is a question.

The media is terming this as a landmark decision, I donot think so, this is a ‘Regressive’ decision. This decision is biased against other deserving candidates who did not get a seat due to favoritism. Worse, this favoritism is by an educational institute which needs to instill the ethical and moral standards in students.

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Incorrect Analysis: CBSE Class XII results out, girls again outshine boys

I just read this news article and something did not seem right, so I thought about digging further and found the CBSE detailed analysis here.

If you go through the analysis, Yes, more girls have cleared than boys BUT the correct ‘apples to apples’ comparison will be subject wise results.

Reason why the analysis is incorrect –

Say there are only 2 subjects Chemistry and Home Science. 100 students write the exam (ie 50 boys and 50 girls).

Now lets say 40 boys opt for Chemistry and 10 boys opt for home science. Similarly 10 girls opt for chemistry and 40 girls opt for Home science.

Let the pass % in Chemistry is 85% for boys and 80% for girls and similarly the pass % is 97% for boys and 96% for girls in Home science.

Subject	Males			Females
	No. of students	Pass %	Total students Passed	No. of students	Pass %	Total students Passed
Chemistry	40	85%	34	10	80%	8
Home Science	10	97%	9	40	96%	38
Total			43			46

In aggregate (chemistry + home science) 43 boys have passed and 46 girls have passed. But subject wise, the pass % of girls is lower. Is it correct to state that the girls have outperformed boys, when in both the subjects boys have performed better?

Therefore, Apples to Apples comparison is required.

Let’s see the data of the highest pass % subjects in the exam –

• Home Science
• Political Science
• Sanskrit
• Sociology
• Urdu
• Geography
• Hindi
• History

Now do let me know which subjects are taken up by majority of the girls?

CBSE needs to provide subject wise pass percentage of boys and girls for the analysis to be meaningful.

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