GENDER EQALITY AND SOCIO- ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN IN INDIA : GENDER STEREOTYPE IN INDIA

This paper comprises of different agendas prepared for gender equality and socio economic empowerment of women in todays world. Gender equality is not just a womens issue, now it has acquired a wide recognition and it is a development issue. Women economic empowerment is essential for economic development, growth and poverty reduction not only because the income it generates but also to break the vicious circle of life. We can achieve gender equality by educating girls increasing literacy rates among women increasing early childhood development interventions increasing womens labour force participation and strengthening labour policies affecting women improving womens access to credit, land and other resources promoting womens political rights and participation expanding reproductive health programs and family support policies. Empowering women and girls is not only the right thing to do, its also smart economics and vital to ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The meaning of gender stereotype is simply the generalisations about the roles of each gender. These are generally neither positive nor negative. Since each person has individual desires, thoughts and feelings, regardless of their gender, these stereotypes are generally incredibly simplistic and do not describe attributes of every person of each gender. There is a general notion that a female stereotypic role is to marry and have children, she puts her family and children welfare before her own, a women are often nurse and not doctors, be loving, compassionate, caring, nurturing, and find time to feel sexy and beautiful. The feminist movement, or womens liberation movement which is a major initiative towards empowerment of socio-political force in early sixties, has lobbied for the rights of women and minorities. Feminists have fought hard to challenge and redefine traditional stereotypic gender roles.