Chapter 5 — Women Change the World

According to the NSS 61st Round (2004–05), 83.6 per cent of working women in India are engaged in agricultural work, including planting, weeding, harvesting and threshing—yet when people picture a farmer they typically think of a man.

Laxmi Lakra is a 27-year-old woman from a poor tribal family in Jharkhand who became the first woman engine driver for Northern Railways. She studied in a government school, earned a diploma in electronics, and passed the railway board exam on her first attempt.

Amar Jiban is an autobiography written in Bangla by Rashsundari Devi (1800–1890), a housewife from a rich landlord's family in West Bengal. She wrote it at the age of 60 after teaching herself to read and write in secret, and it is the first known autobiography written by an Indian woman.

Ramabai (1858–1922) championed women's education and was given the title Pandita for her ability to read and write Sanskrit—remarkable at a time when women were not allowed such knowledge. In 1898, she set up a Mission in Khedgaon near Pune where widows and poor women were taught literacy as well as skills like carpentry and running a printing press.

Sultana's Dream is a story written by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain in 1905 when she was 25 years old, written to practise her English. It imagines a place called Ladyland where women freely study, work, and create inventions such as controlling rain and flying air cars, while men remain in seclusion.

In 1961, about 40 per cent of boys and men were literate compared to just 15 per cent of girls and women. By the 2011 census, these figures had grown to 82 per cent for boys and men and 65 per cent for girls and women—significant progress, but the gender gap has not closed.

Reasons include a lack of proper schools and regular teachers in many rural areas, no transport to schools, poverty that forces families to prioritise boys' education, and discrimination by teachers and classmates. The 2011 census found that a Muslim girl is likely to stay in school for around three years compared to around four years for girls from other communities.

Women's movement campaigns led to a 2006 law providing legal protection to women facing physical and mental violence (domestic violence) in their homes. The Supreme Court also issued guidelines in 1997 to protect women from sexual harassment at the workplace and within educational institutions. In the 1980s, campaigns against dowry deaths led to changes in dowry laws.

The women's movement uses campaigning (street plays, songs, public meetings), raising awareness about women's rights issues, protesting through public rallies and demonstrations, and showing solidarity with other women and causes. International Women's Day on 8 March is one occasion when women worldwide renew their struggles.

A stereotype is the belief that people belonging to particular groups have certain fixed characteristics or can only do certain types of work. For example, assuming that women make better nurses because they are patient, or that girls cannot handle technical subjects. Stereotypes prevent people from being seen as unique individuals.

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain learned Bangla and English with the support of her elder brother and an elder sister. In those days, English was considered unsuitable for girls as it might expose them to new ideas, so it was mostly boys who were taught English.

Rashsundari Devi secretly took pages from a religious manuscript (Chaitanya Bhagabat) her husband had left at home and hid them carefully. She also hid one of her eldest son's alphabet practice sheets and matched the letters from the hidden page with words she heard during the day, slowly teaching herself to read over a long period of time.

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