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“What is true women empowerment?”

Women Empowerment in IITBombay

Chandrika Bhardwaj (07002019)

Empowerment is considered as a process of awareness and conscientization, of capacity

building leading to greater participation, effective decision-making power and control

leading to transformative action. This involves ability to get what one wants and to influence

others on our concerns.

In a society with a highly skewed gender ratio towards males, like that of IITB, when we

analyse the issue of women empowerment in the light of the above definition, we come

across both positives and negatives.

The attitude of a society towards any issue is governed largely by its administrative policies.

When walking through the rules and regulations imposed by the authorities in the institute,

we observe the existence of a positive environment for women.

Unlike other institutions, there are no restrictions on female students about hostel timings.

They have an equal footing with their male counterparts. This gives freedom to the women

and encourages active participation in all spheres – academics, cultural, organisation, sports

and other areas of social life.

The authorities are in general concerned for female students and their safety. Strong actions

like Disciplinary Action Committee have come into the scene when there have been

complaints against someone. The campus is considered very secure mostly by all and it is

safe inside even at the middle of the night to walk on the campus roads. Credit for such high

security again goes to the authorities.

Recently there were allegations on authorities for gender discrimination against the female

PhD students of hostel 11 about the room allotment issues. Being one of the 38 privileged

girls of the 2007 batch who got a single room when many of our male friends in hostel 13

were quadrupled and rest others were still double, I feel there is actually no bias. It

happened because of the pressure on infrastructure and bad planning of the concerned

authorities. Also, the males of hostel 14 went through a similar ordeal. It does not from a

case of favouritism for the male students.

When provision of opportunities was considered, we feel there is empowerment but it is

too soon and would be immature to comment on the absolute empowerment of the

women especially when democracy takes the forefront in major decision making. The

democratic system of IITBombay has a different story to tell.

The perception of the student community is highly skewed against the female candidates

contesting in the elections, which is reflected each year. It is difficult for a girl to even think

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of contesting in elections especially for a post like General Secretary and even if someone

overcomes that thought process and decides to stand in the competition, they have to face

a lot of outside resistance, mockery and what not. There is definitely lack of political

empowerment which results in almost negligible representation in decision making process.

Not losing the sight of bigger picture, there have been female office bearers too but suchcases are rare.

While women in the campus are free as individuals they do not enjoy the same freedom as a

community. The fulfilment of their demands depends on the mercy of others. The case of 

negligence of PhDs of hostel 11 may be attributed to this lack of say in the process.

In this discussion, it would be unfair to neglect the role of the elected representatives in the

nurturing of talents of female students as well. There are special sports camps organised

exclusively for female students, certain workshops in hostel 10 and 11 exclusively for their

inmates. Swimming pool has special ladies timings though the scheduling of the female

timings is again debatable.

The challenges faced by the women community are majorly because of their low population

and more so due to lack of unity amongst themselves. The two girls’ hostels pursue their

own interests independently and have never come together to demand their rights.

A major reason for any kind of discrimination which is going on unrevolted till now is

ignorance. The social structure has conditioned our minds in such a way that either we fail

to acknowledge the discrimination or lack the power to oppose it.

To ensure women empowerment, it is needed to make the immature students entering IITB

realize the importance of women in the society and taught to respect them. There has to be

a positive change in the thinking of the society from where we come. True women

empowerment will see the light of the day when the men of our society will accept the

equality of the women.

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Contact Details-

Email Id- chandrika@iitb.ac.in 

Phone number- 9920860351