Equal rights and unequal opportunities faced by women: An analysis to act Dr. Yadav Omendra Kumar ICSSR Post Doctoral Fellow, Dptt. of Social Work, University of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. E-mail: omendrakryadav@gmail.com Online published on 27 June, 2017. Abstract The discriminated and exploited of women is seen all over the world. The empowerment is an aid to help women to achieve equality with men or, at least, to reduce gender gap considerably. Women play a very strategic role in the development of society in particular and development of economy in general. Woman is the leader planner of the family, the first trainer; supplier of labour power and by playing focal role in the development of agriculture, industry, service sector, socio-culture etc. creates a civilized society. Women contribute directly or indirectly for economic development. Though the nature has given the genetic power of reproduction especially to the women, the socio-economic status of women is so poor and the incidence of poverty is more on woman only. Empowering women is the only solution for all questions. Her potential hidden power is to be utilized for which, her status in the society must be improved and economically she should be strengthened. The poverty is the main cause for her low bargaining power hence poverty should be removed. Empowering women and removal of poverty go hand in hand. Woman if is educated and empowered, her potential power can be utilized for the economic development. Mahatma Gandhiji says, “You educate a man, you educate an individual. You educate a woman, you educate an entire family.” Present study is the analysis of secondary data which aims to identify the potential areas of gender gaps i.e. education, health, political participation, employment, etc in India. It has been learnt from the analysis that phenomena of gender segregation and gender gap are wide and can be observed in almost every walk of life. The study suggested that gender gap can be reduced by taking concrete steps. Top Keywords Gender, Gender equality, Gender gap, Political participation and empowerment. Top |