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Unit 10: Women's Empowerment

of husband, non-support by husband, desertion by husband, and preference for work outside Notes
the home.
• The ‘high’ satisfaction implies being happy with the performance of both the worker’s and
home-maker’s roles; ‘moderate’ satisfaction implies marginal imbalance in the equilibrium
of the two roles (one coming in the way of other); and ‘low’ satisfaction implies being
dissatisfied with one or both roles to a very large extent. In Deepa Mathur’s study, 53 per
cent women were found to be highly satisfied (with their dual roles), 18 per cent moderately
satisfied, and 29 per cent dissatisfied.
• The working women have to ‘adjust’ themselves in home as well as working-place. Adjustment
is “smooth switch-over from one status to other status, perceiving roles as perceived by
others, and performing multiple roles with efficiency and satisfaction.” In simple terms, role
adjustment depends upon role demands (by the society) and role performance (by the
individual).
• A working woman has to face innumerable problems. The home-life has to be adjusted with
the office routine. The house-work has to be organized on lines different from the traditional
ones.
• The ‘home adjustment’ and ‘job adjustment’ include different criteria of evaluation. In the
case of working women, generally it is found that the degree of high adjustment is higher in
case of job adjustment as compared to home adjustment.
• The issues pertaining to economic laws include : right to property or inheritance, equal
wages, working conditions, maternity benefits, and job security. The right to property of a
woman refers to her right as a daughter, as a wife, as a widow, and as a mother. According
to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, not only a daughter is given a right in her father’s
property equal to her brothers, but a widow also gets a share in her deceased husband’s
property equal to her sons and daughters. The legislation has also removed the distinction
between stridhan and non-stridhan.
• The conceptual model conceived for this research assured that the level of awareness of
rights by a woman in a specific domain (economic, social, political or religious) is dependent
on four things : her individual background (educational level, aspiration level,, and personal
needs), her social environment (including expectations of kins, husband’s values and family
members’ perceptions), her subjective perception (of her status and roles), and her economic
base (that is, level of class-membership).
• The working women evaluate the roles of housework and homemaker as positively as the
non-working women despite the burden which the role of wage-earning imposes on them.
• About nine out of every ten working women are dissatisfied with their wage-earning
work. This dissatisfaction, however, is caused by the nature of work they do and the
wages they get rather than by the idea of the work itself.
• Social remedies include women welfare services, encouraging the establishment of voluntary
organizations, and legal literacy of women through mass media. The voluntary organizations
have to identify women in need of services. The help of the neighbours has to be sought in
reporting cases of ‘abused’ women to human service agencies. The public education and
awareness programmes will help women in taking injustice to them seriously and seeking
the help of social workers and women’s problems of injustice quickly, effectively, and in a
manner that treats the causes of injustice and abuse, not just the symptoms.
• Non-discrimination, inter alia, on ground of sex-specifically in the matter of gaining free
access to places of public resort; and State having authority to make special provisions for
women (Article 15).
• “Violence against the human body is generally a penal offence, whether it be the man or the
woman who is affected. The provisions of laws affecting women in this regard have been

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