Word: womens
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Right after the International Women’s Day, the Indian Upper House took a great step toward gender equality by approving a bill that proposes an amendment mandating that a third of legislative seats be reserved for women for the next 15 years. The quota bill, despite being a fairly crude way of increasing women’s participation in the state legislature, constitutes significant progress toward the goal of gender equality in India; nevertheless, in the future, similar bills should be refined so as not to lead to corollary discrimination toward other groups...
...quota bill constitutes progress toward eradicating the barriers that prevent gender equality because it would directly address the party boss-controlled electoral system that helps foster gender-based discrimination. The bill will allow women to enter the political realm and actively work to change a society that, despite having had a few female political leaders in the past, is still widely unequal...
Leaders of the three parties opposing the bill raised the concern that women would not vote independently, instead serving as proxies for male family members. This argument seems both condescending and misplaced: First, it implies that all elected women will become unaware pawns susceptible to coercion from close family members; second, it doesn’t take into account the possibility—and hope—that elected women will ultimately cast their own votes, no matter the outside forces attempting to sway their decisions...
India’s decision to bring a larger number of women into its legislature is commendable—it represents a move toward greater gender equality in India. However, any future reforms similar to the quota bill should aim to minimize the detrimental effect on the non-involved groups. If not, raising the condition of one minority could hurt another—an unintended and detrimental side effect that undermines the aim of otherwise positive legislation...
...Some of your hypotheses about gender roles in human evolution could be construed as your saying that women are supposed to do the domestic work of cooking. Have you gotten any angry letters or e-mails saying that you have cast women in an unfavorable light...