Shampa Dev

Paper: Legal Measures for Empowering Women and Gender Justice

Abstract

Educating the girl child, creating job opportunities, putting women in decision making roles, making pro-women laws, protecting them from oppression, etc. were some of the many steps that were designed for empowering women. But many years down the line we are still struggling for gender justice. The quest for a just society that values women and accords them the necessary dignity and respect is still on. A paternalistic approach was adopted to rid women of their troubles, which stemmed from a fundamentally flawed assumption that women were victims of the social divide, belonging to a vulnerable group. They, therefore required protection and a number of measures were required and adopted to empower her.

 The authors argue that the flaw is in the paternalistic approach. Women are not accorded autonomy of self-governance or self-direction where they can work as per a reason of their own. The feminists suspiciously looked down on autonomy as a masculine trait. Self-abnegation or agreeing to the wishes of others and adaptive preference formation are considered real values. Hence in spite of all the measures empowering them, women yet are not empowered enough to make autonomous choices. The authors also argue that autonomy needs to be redefined. It can never be a masculine versus feminine argument nor can it be attained in isolation. Autonomy is a relative idea where a just and compassionate society nurtures its members and creates social conditions that strengthens autonomous decisions, instead of impeding them, for the realization of their full potential.

Shampa Dev, Associate Professor at School of Law, Christ University, takes keen interest in Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence. Much of her work is inter-disciplinary. She has combined law with bio-technology, environment and human rights and psychology. She has published in various national and international journals.