DR. B.R.

AMBEDKAR NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY

PROJECT WORK
SUBJECT – ENGLISH
NAME- MALVIKA TIWARI

ROLL NUMBER- 2201063

SUBMITTED TO – DR. JYOTI RANA

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Every project is a testament to the efforts and endeavors of its creator. It

is an amalgamation of the blood, time, sweat, and energy that is put into,
it in order to breathe life into it. A project, like this, owes its existence to
the guidance and knowledge provided by the teachers, friends, and
parents.

I, Malvika Tiwari, feel immensely proud to state that I have successfully

completed my assignment, well ahead of the deadline. None of this would
have been possible if it were not for the able guidance, supervision, love,
and patience of Dr. Jyoti Rana. I am extremely grateful to her for helping
me out with this project. I would also like to thank the Vice Chancellor of
DBRANLU for giving us students this golden opportunity of learning
something new, and of honing up our communication and presentation
skills.

Lastly, I would also like to thank my friends and seniors who aided me in
giving shape to my assignment. I shall forever remain indebted to the
aforementioned people for helping me out, showing me the right
direction, and exhibiting patience, love, and respect toward me.
 FEMALE FOETICIDE

WHAT IS FEMALE FOETICIDE?

A foetus dies as a result of an act known as feticide or foeticide. In a legal setting, it refers to
the intentional or unintentional killing of a foetus as a result of an illegal human act, such as
striking a pregnant woman in the abdomen. Feticide is the term used in medicine to describe
the killing of a foetus, such as during the initial stage of a legal induced abortion (wikipedia,
2011). It is long-debated whether the latter is lawful and inevitable in some particular
circumstances, particularly at the beginning stages of pregnancy. However, sex-selective
abortion cannot be justified in any way. ‘ In the past, the only harsh choice for getting rid of
the female child was to commit infanticide because there was no genetic testing available.

FEMALE FOETICIDE IN INDIA

Female foeticide is the first form of prejudice against women and girls in the nation of India.
It is a gender-selective abortion in which a female foetus is unlawfully aborted just because
she is a girl. We are now able to identify the gender of the foetus far earlier in the pregnancy
thanks to recent technological advancements in the last 20 years. As a result, India is seeing a
sharp rise in the number of gender-specific abortions.

HISTORY OF FEMALE FOETICIDE

Professor Anibel Ferus-Comelo, a professor at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public
Policy specializing in labor and gender studies in India, explained that “before technology, it
used to be that births were just ‘hidden’ because of female infanticides. Baby girls were
killed, and it continues among the population that cannot afford or do not have access to
technology or medical clinics.”
The ability to use ultrasounds for medical diagnostic tests to identify a fetus's gender during
pregnancy emerged in the 1970s. With the aid of high-frequency sound waves, ultrasounds
may provide precise images of a foetus inside the mother's uterus that can be used to assess
the foetus' location and health as well as identify any potential issues. However, a tool
designed to assist families in getting ready for a new life instead made India's infanticide
problem worse. India is thought to have 63 million fewer women today than it did in the
1970s when sex-determination technologies first became available.
Based on sex-determination testing, female feticide is a relatively recent phenomenon. When
ultrasound technology became widely used by upper-class and upper-caste society members
in the 1990s, it exploded in India. The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques
Act (1994), which was passed when the Indian government learned about this technology,
made it unlawful to identify a foetus’s sex unless it was required for urgent medical reasons.
Despite sex determination testing being prohibited in India, this policy's effectiveness
depended on the jurisdiction where it was implemented, which led to the continuance of mass
sex-selective testing and abortions. Due to the widespread use of sex-selective abortions, it is
predicted that by 2030 there will be 6.8 million fewer female births.

ROOT CAUSES BEHIND FEMALE FOETICIDE

Indian patriarchal attitudes are at the heart of sex-selective abortions and female feticide.
Indian sons traditionally carry on the family legacy by performing burial ceremonies for their
parents, ensuring the souls' safe exit. This is important from a cultural perspective. These
perceptions have strengthened the belief that Indian parents should treat their sons with
greater pride and respect than they do Indian girls, who are viewed less favourably by the
general public. India's urban and rural communities continue to have the belief that women
should be limited to their roles as caregivers and mothers, despite the fact that this view is no
longer valid in more globalised countries.

Boys have traditionally been thought of as the family's "breadwinners" in terms of finances.
They have been responsible for finding employment and supporting their family. But girls
have consistently been seen as a financial burden, particularly during the marriage. Girls still
frequently marry at a relatively young age in India's rural areas. A global alliance called Girls
Not Brides, which seeks to prevent child marriage, reports that roughly 27% of Indian girls
get married before they turn 18 years old. When a girl marries, her parents are supposed to
give the groom's family a "dowry," which is essentially payment in the form of money, food,
home goods, and clothing. Dowries, according to Professor Ferus-Comelo, are "a profoundly
demeaning ritual. To some extent, it represents the fact that you must pay someone to take
your daughter. She said that the practise is still in use, but that there are many alternative
names and euphemisms for it. "Dowries are not necessarily termed 'dowries,' but sometimes
they are called 'gifts,'" she said. Daughters are expected to take on their husband’s last name
after marriage and relocate with their family to start their responsibilities in the home. As a
result, young females frequently lack the knowledge, self-assurance, and financial
independence necessary to make thoughtful choices regarding pregnancy and parenthood.
The political culture in India further exacerbates the perception that women should be treated
inferiorly. In the 1980s, political propaganda in India and the United States portrayed slogans
such as “Pay 5,000 now, save 50,000 later” directed towards South-Asian communities to
encourage them to pay the cost of sex-determination technology than having a daughter and
bearing an economic cost in the future. Professor Ferus-Comelo remarked that, “The same
ads, now decades later, have come back with the clinics offering the same possibilities, and it
shows that there is still a market for sex-selective abortions even in the United States.” She
also explained that the rise of the Hindu political right has furthered, “notions of womanhood
tied exclusively to the heteronormative wife and mother roles. This then restricts women’s
abilities to break out of these molds.”

FACTORS LEADING TO FEMALE FOETICIDE

In India female Foeticide is taking place for various factors viz. economic, socio-
ritual, and technological.
A) Economic Factors: the female Foeticide in the 21
st
century have a great deal to do with
capitalist modernity. There are aspects of it lying behind these phenomena.
i) For rural households with landed property there is a clear inverse correlation
between the
income level and child sex ratio. It is especially evident in south India. Again there is
gender
based wage level. For the same work females are paid less remuneration. In most
cases
women enter in the domestic non-paid services which a patriarchal society gives little
or no
value at all, so they are regarded as liability than assets.
ii) Cultural politics of dowry in the Indian society have a lot of answer for this
pernicious
phenomenon. Since the turn of century the recorded dowry deaths are increasing.
Nearly 7-
8000 per year brides are murdered for the lack of full payment of dowry. Nearly 3-5000
brides
are committing suicides for dowry. Brides are thought as commodities and the pre
marriage
and marriage have been described as ‘consumption oriented reproductive journey’. When
the
reproductive practices make daughters into such economic burden, the threat of having
to
amass dowry is motive enough to dispose female commodities (Barbara Harriss-White, 2009)
iii) The female foeticide has been commodified. It has started to become a field of
accumulation
in its own right. Malini Bhattachgarya, the member of the national commission for
women,
admitted that in the era of liberalisation “one has to allow freedom of choice to the
servic
In India female Foeticide is taking place for various factors viz. economic, socio-
ritual, and technological.
A) Economic Factors: the female Foeticide in the 21
st
century have a great deal to do with
capitalist modernity. There are aspects of it lying behind these phenomena.
i) For rural households with landed property there is a clear inverse correlation
between the
income level and child sex ratio. It is especially evident in south India. Again there is
gender
based wage level. For the same work females are paid less remuneration. In most
cases
women enter in the domestic non-paid services which a patriarchal society gives little
or no
value at all, so they are regarded as liability than assets.
ii) Cultural politics of dowry in the Indian society have a lot of answer for this
pernicious
phenomenon. Since the turn of century the recorded dowry deaths are increasing.
Nearly 7-
8000 per year brides are murdered for the lack of full payment of dowry. Nearly 3-5000
brides
are committing suicides for dowry. Brides are thought as commodities and the pre
marriage
and marriage have been described as ‘consumption oriented reproductive journey’. When
the
reproductive practices make daughters into such economic burden, the threat of having
to
amass dowry is motive enough to dispose female commodities (Barbara Harriss-White, 2009)
iii) The female foeticide has been commodified. It has started to become a field of
accumulation
in its own right. Malini Bhattachgarya, the member of the national commission for
women,
admitted that in the era of liberalisation “one has to allow freedom of choice to the
servic
In India female Foeticide is taking place for various factors viz. economic, socio-
ritual, and technological.
A) Economic Factors: the female Foeticide in the 21
st
century have a great deal to do with
capitalist modernity. There are aspects of it lying behind these phenomena.
i) For rural households with landed property there is a clear inverse correlation
between the
income level and child sex ratio. It is especially evident in south India. Again there is
gender
based wage level. For the same work females are paid less remuneration. In most
cases
women enter in the domestic non-paid services which a patriarchal society gives little
or no
value at all, so they are regarded as liability than assets.
ii) Cultural politics of dowry in the Indian society have a lot of answer for this
pernicious
phenomenon. Since the turn of century the recorded dowry deaths are increasing.
Nearly 7-
8000 per year brides are murdered for the lack of full payment of dowry. Nearly 3-5000
brides
are committing suicides for dowry. Brides are thought as commodities and the pre
marriage
and marriage have been described as ‘consumption oriented reproductive journey’. When
the
reproductive practices make daughters into such economic burden, the threat of having
to
amass dowry is motive enough to dispose female commodities (Barbara Harriss-White, 2009)
iii) The female foeticide has been commodified. It has started to become a field of
accumulation
in its own right. Malini Bhattachgarya, the member of the national commission for
women,
admitted that in the era of liberalisation “one has to allow freedom of choice to the
servic
In India female Foeticide is taking place for various factors viz. economic, socio-
ritual, and technological.
A) Economic Factors: the female Foeticide in the 21
st
century have a great deal to do with
capitalist modernity. There are aspects of it lying behind these phenomena.
i) For rural households with landed property there is a clear inverse correlation
between the
income level and child sex ratio. It is especially evident in south India. Again there is
gender
based wage level. For the same work females are paid less remuneration. In most
cases
women enter in the domestic non-paid services which a patriarchal society gives little
or no
value at all, so they are regarded as liability than assets.
ii) Cultural politics of dowry in the Indian society have a lot of answer for this
pernicious
phenomenon. Since the turn of century the recorded dowry deaths are increasing.
Nearly 7-
8000 per year brides are murdered for the lack of full payment of dowry. Nearly 3-5000
brides
are committing suicides for dowry. Brides are thought as commodities and the pre
marriage
and marriage have been described as ‘consumption oriented reproductive journey’. When
the
reproductive practices make daughters into such economic burden, the threat of having
to
amass dowry is motive enough to dispose female commodities (Barbara Harriss-White, 2009)
iii) The female foeticide has been commodified. It has started to become a field of
accumulation
in its own right. Malini Bhattachgarya, the member of the national commission for
women,
admitted that in the era of liberalisation “one has to allow freedom of choice to the
servic
In India female Foeticide is taking place for various factors viz. economic, socio ritual, and
technological.

A) Economic Factors:
Female Foeticide in the 21st century has a great deal to do with capitalist modernity. There
are aspects of it lying behind these phenomena.
i) For rural households with landed property there is a clear inverse correlation between the
income level and child sex ratio. It is especially evident in south India. Again there is a
gender-based wage level. For the same work, females are paid less remuneration. In most
cases women enter domestic non-paid services which a patriarchal society gives little or no
value at all, so they are regarded as liabilities than assets.

ii) Cultural politics of dowry in Indian society have a lot of answers for this pernicious
phenomenon. Since the turn of the century, the recorded dowry deaths are increasing. Nearly
7- 8000 per year brides are murdered for the lack of full payment of dowry. Nearly 3-5000
brides are committing suicide for dowry. Brides are thought of as commodities and the pre-
marriage and marriage have been described as ‘consumption-oriented reproductive journey.
When the reproductive practices make daughters into such an economic burden, the threat of
having to amass dowry is motive enough to dispose of female commodities. (Barbara
Harriss-White, 2009)

iii) Female foeticide has been commodified. It has started to become a field of accumulation
in its own right. Malini Bhattachgarya, a member of the national commission for women,
admitted that in the era of liberalization “one has to allow freedom of choice to the service
seeker and the freedom to sell by the service provider”. Foeticide may cost one or two
months’ earnings, while dowry requires mobilisation of several years’ income. Hence there
appears equilibrium between the service seeker and provider. UNICEF estimates that the
turnover of the foeticide industry has now reached 244 million dollars from 77 million
dollars in 2006. (Barbara Harriss-White, 2009). Those who disapproved of the practice of
sex-selective abortions but engaged in it against their principles expressed their compulsions
and helplessness due to pressures arising out of unhealthy competition in the healthcare
service sector. It was said that if they did not provide abortion care services, some others
would have provided them (Tandon and Sharma, 2008).
B) Socio-ritual factors:
Females are vulnerable to brutalities of the male in the forms of physical, mental and sexual
assaults and traumas in the patriarchal societal structure of India. Females are subjugated,
condemned, and deprived in sphere of life. Every parent of a girl child is at risk for their
daughter in this patriarchal society for the mentioned causes. Again for the funeral
ceremonies of the parents, the presence of a son is a must. According to Manu, A man cannot
attain moksha (redemption) unless he has a son to light his funeral pyre. In old age, the sons
will care for them believably. These socio-rituals factors including illiteracy and orthodox
societal norms lead to cravings for a male baby, discarding the females one after another.

C) Technological factors:
Female foeticide is the latest trend of long-established gender bias. We are civilized with time
and our killing of female babies has also been civilized. The presence of low-cost
technologies like ultrasound has led to sex-based abortion of female foetuses, and an
increasingly smaller percentage of girls born each year (Jain, 2005)

D) Population Policy:
Indian family planning policies promote a two-child family and health workers say this often
leads to the abortion of female foetuses in efforts to have a "complete family" with at least
one son. (Sen, 2005)

PATTERN OF FEMALE FOETICIDE ACROSS THE STATES

Regardless of caste, income, religion, or the north-south split, female foeticides are prevalent
throughout all of India's states. Female foeticide causes about 5-7 lakh girls each year, or
2000 girls per day, to disappear in India. Female foeticides were most prevalent in
Maharashtra in 2000 (45.1% of all foeticides in India), then in the states of Madhya Pradesh,
Haryana, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh.

THE LEGALITY OF ABORTION IN INDIA

Healthcare services are provided in India by both public and private organisations.
Government services, on the other hand, are uncommon and offer low-quality care, whereas
private services offer high-quality care but are out of the reach of the majority of the people.
Additionally, it is not necessary to obtain health insurance in India, and businesses are not
required by law to offer insurance to their staff members. As a result, 70% of people must
pay out-of-pocket for the majority of services and procedures because they lack health
insurance.
One of these procedures is abortion. In India, abortion is permitted, but sex-selective
abortions—abortions based only on the foetus' sex—are prohibited. Abortions that are legal
are only carried out at the doctor's discretion. The decision to have an abortion is not one that
the woman is entitled to make. If the foetus has any abnormalities, if the pregnancy threatens
the mother or the fetus's life, if it happened because married women's contraception failed, or
if it was brought on by sexual assault or rape, a doctor may legally perform an abortion. In
India, women can use an abortion pill and a doctor's supervision to have a legal abortion
within the first seven weeks of their pregnancy. However, after the first seven weeks have
gone, a foetus must be surgically aborted in order to preserve the woman's life. Insurance
companies would only pay for some medical expenses if the pregnancy was terminated
because the woman's life was in danger. If not, the lady is responsible for covering all
financial expenses.
This raises an important question: why do women not have the autonomy to make decisions
about having an abortion? Autonomy is not simply about making individual choices, but it
also involves economic autonomy or independence. Even if a woman wants to have an
abortion for medical reasons but cannot afford to, she may have to turn to unsafe or illegal
options. Obviously, due to the illegal nature of sex-selective abortions, a woman’s only
option is to use illegal or unsafe methods.

EXACERBATION OF LIFE-THREATENING, SEX-

SELECTIVE ABORTIONS BY THE PANDEMIC

Although abortion in India is legal, illegal abortions currently outnumber them because most
abortions in India are solely based on the fetal sex preference for boys. Almost ten women
die every day of unsafe, illegal abortions in India. According to India’s health ministry,
nearly half of abortions are conducted in hazardous and unhygienic conditions and are often
performed by untrained physicians or healthcare professionals.

Since sex determination tests are illegal within India, many women opt-in for diagnostic
testing (conducted illegally by gangs), take sex selection drugs (SSDs), or try “old-wives
tale” remedies to change the sex of the foetus after conception. Still, many women are
unaware that the foetus’s sex is determined during the fertilization of the egg by sperm and
cannot be changed after that. The mother donates an egg, which always contributes an X
chromosome to the fetus’s genome, while the father’s sperm can contribute either an X or a Y
chromosome. If the sperm contributes an X chromosome, the fetus will be a girl, while a Y
chromosome indicates that it will be a boy. Not only are many women uninformed about this
concept, but they take harmful drugs containing synthetic chemicals and heavy metals that
often result in congenital disabilities and stillbirths.

THE IMPACTS OF FEMALE FOETICIDES

The immediate impact of female foeticides is the unbalanced sex ratio. The child sex ratio for
the age group of 0-6 years has currently 927 per 1000 boys. Punjab has 798 girls, Haryana
819, Delhi 868, and Gujarat 883 per 1000 boys. It is found that there is a gradual decline in
the sex ratio from 1901 to 1941 due to infanticides and foeticides and there is a fluctuation in
the sex ratio between 1941 and 2001. Here one thing is attracting our attention though there is
a substantial increase in the overall sex ratio in India from 1991-2001, there is a drastic
decline in the child sex ratio (CSR). The overall sex ratio increased from 929 to 933 between
1991 and 2001, but the CSR fall from 945 to 927 during that period.

This fall in CSR indicates that during 1991-2001 there may be substantial female foeticide.
As the sex CSR declines, in near future overall sex ratio will do the same. This decline in the
sex ratio will badly hamper the social structure and the development process. This imbalance
would have serious repercussions for Indian society in the future, especially on the status of
women, leading to increased sexual violence including prostitution, trafficking, and the
reduced mobility of women. Recent reports in local media said young men in Punjab and
Haryana were finding it hard to find brides. Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Kalpana Chawla
all these special names have one thing in common, “they were all women”. Killing the girl
child by making a pre-birth investigation is a social sin destroying the roots of Indian society.
And one will come when the females will be disappeared from the earth i.e. the human race
will also face extinction.

SOCIAL IMPACT OF A SKEWED SEX RATIO

Studies show that countries with imbalanced sex-ratios tend to have a more violent culture.
According to Professor Ferus-Comelo, “crimes against women, particularly by upper-caste on
the lower-caste, continues when the signal goes out from the top-down that violence is okay
and that they deserve it because they are beneath our level.” This can be observed in India’s
north and north western states where the highest gender disparities exist and power is
centralized among criminal gangs called goondas. Studies have shown that when there is an
enormous surplus of men within countries with a skewed sex ratio (30+ million within India),
they are unlikely to obtain stability economically through labour or socially through
marriage. To gain economic stability, men are more likely to join criminal gangs. In order to
gain social stability, men seek out marriage. However, in some areas where the ratio of
women to men is alarmingly low, men cannot find girls to marry. As a result, brides are
“purchased” from other areas leading to forced marriages and human trafficking. Professor
Ferus-Comelo remarked that, “one would think, logically, that if there are fewer women, their
value actually rises. Their value in the marriage market should increase. But that is not the
case.”

COVID-19 has exacerbated this issue as women are more likely to seek unsafe or illegal
abortion options since medical professionals and resources have been redirected to help
combat the pandemic. Even before the pandemic, domestic violence has been an immense
problem in India. In 2018, “Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives” accounted for 32% of all
crimes against women registered by the police amounting to over 100,000 cases. Due to
quarantine orders, women are more likely to be trapped with abusive partners or lack access
to contraception. Many Indian women who are victims of domestic violence have limited
education and are usually unable to be financially independent. They have inadequate options
and resources because they cannot turn to their parents due to social stigmas, or their parents
cannot take them in due to financial burdens. However, the future looks optimistic as more
organizations such as Shakti Shalini, Rise Up, and SNEHA Crisis Helpline are working to
provide health and sexual education to girls and women in India to inform them about safe
sex practices, contraception, and resources for domestic violence survivors.
REVIEW OF THE MEASURE TAKEN TO COMBAT FEMALE
FOETICIDES
In the modern period of Indian history, a number of measures have been taken to combat
female foeticides either as institutional measures or as individual initiatives.

A) Institutional measures:

1) PNDT (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act-1994: Maharashtra is the first state in
The country is to ban pre-natal sex determination through the enactment of the Maharashtra
regulation of prenatal diagnostics techniques act. Similar efforts at the national level resulted
in the
enactment of the Central pre-natal diagnostic techniques (Regulation and prevention of
misuse) Act 1994. The act has two aspects viz., regulatory and preventive. It seeks to regulate
the use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for legal or medical purposes and prevent misuse
for illegal purposes. The act provides for the setting up of various bodies along with their
composition powers and functions. There is a central supervisory board, appropriate
authorities, and advisory committees. Violations of the PNDT Act carry a five-year jail term
and a fine of about 2,300 U.S. dollars.

2) The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to the Indian government and the states and
union territories on a petition seeking stricter implementation of laws that ban pre-natal sex
selection tests and sex-selective abortions in India. A concerned Supreme Court observed that
the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act
1994 (PCPNDT) which is meant to prevent female foeticide in India, has failed. The petition
brought to the court's attention the rampant practice of sex-selective abortions in many parts
of the country, with doctors indiscriminately conducting sex-determination tests and carrying
out abortions because of the lax implementation of the PCPNDT Act.

3) UNICEF is committed to protecting every child from violence, exploitation, abuse and
discrimination.

4) The government would declare January 24, 2010 as national girl child day with a focus
on targeting the scourges of female foeticide, domestic violence, and malnutrition.

B) Individual and group appeals and initiatives:

In modern India, there have always been protests against female infanticides by various
national leaders like Vidyasagar, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and Mahatma Gandhi a few names
to mention. In the very recent decades, many persons from different walks of life have
protested against female foeticides.
1) Describing female foeticide as a “disgrace” to society Mrs.Pratibha Patil India's first
women President has called upon the medical fraternity to ensure that diagnostic tests
are not misused for pre-natal gender determination.
2) Mrs.Meira Kumar first woman Lok Sabha Speaker said, “Women have great power
hidden within them. Even the Mahatma believed in this and decided to involve them
in the freedom struggle…But today we live in a country where rampant female
foeticide and female infanticide take place. The condition of women in our country
needs attention.”
3) 3) Raveena Tandon, an actress who has been associated with numerous NGOs and
social activities was in the Pink City to promote a campaign aimed at saving the girl
child.

SOLUTIONS
Professor Ferus-Comelo explained that as more young people become exposed to other
cultures and lifestyles, “people have higher expectations of one’s own culture.” She
continued to explain that, “there has been a very positive, inspiring awakening of women
when their worlds have been constrained, and they know there is greater potential.” The only
way to combat the issue of such a complex problem of female foeticide is to solve the root
causes: skewed political propaganda, and a lack of economic opportunities, and unenforced
legislation.

South Korea, which also faced a severely skewed sex-ratio, implemented solutions that have
shown promising results, and many Indian government officials are looking to emulate their
approach. They improved, enacted, and strictly enforced laws that prohibited female feticide,
encouraged and provided opportunities for more women to enter the labor force, and used the
media to mobilize support for their initiatives.

India should work to allocate more resources to better enforce the Prohibition of Sex
Selection Act. Although the government launched a similar campaign in 2015, it was
unsuccessful. To improve their efforts, experts recommend that the government should
charge doctors who conduct illegal sex determination testing with hefty fines and strengthen
detection for illegal clinics and services provided by gangs.

Most importantly, the government should promote women’s education, provide better
opportunities for women to enter the labor force, enable more women to serve political
positions, and enact equal inheritance laws. Furthermore, health education on domestic
violence awareness and safe sex practices should also be provided for men. Female education
is one of the most influential factors in reducing gender discrimination and sexual violence.
Studies prove that exposure to female leadership leads to a significant decrease in the gender
gap for educational attainment (32%). Moreover, introducing cable television to India’s rural
areas and playing shows that had strong female characters or women in power caused
preference for sons to decrease by 12% and school enrolment for children to increase by 5%.
If women have better access to quality education, they can have better opportunities to enter
the workforce and become financially independent. Professor Ferus-Comelo expressed that,
“economic independence leads to less discrimination. If girls and women had equal access to
wealth and income and legal inheritance rights, they could have a sense of economic
independence, then these kinds of norms are going to change.”