‘HOW EMPOWERED ARE WOMEN’: A SOCIO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE POSITION AND STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE INDIAN SOCIETY

Abstract

A society functions and flourishes harmoniously when there’s balance between the societal norms and the legal structure. Both, the rules set customarily by the society and the codified laws laid by the state, overlap each other, which is not only a logical truth but is also a necessary aspect of consideration before setting up the legal structure of any society. Indian society has historical prevalence of patriarchal dominance, that shapes the social functioning, deciding what men and women should do and specially what the women should not do.

Women revolutionaries and visionary men have tried to ensure upscaling progress of women in all realms of life. The social, political, educational, economic,and cultural rights shape a society. In Indian society, women have majorly been deprived of almost all of these in earlier times, but the facts today are different and definitely relieving. However, a lot yet needs to be done to secure women’s empowerment, to uplift the social and economic position, for which education, legal awareness, economic empowerment are some basic factors to work up on. To check up on these, a survey was done through a questionnaire and on the analysis of the data collected, it was found that the need to uplift and empower women through education, legal awareness and especially financially, is extremely vital to achieve equality, freedom from gender bias and similar desired changes in the society.