to the Justice Verma Report has been hugely successful, but there is more work to be done. Advocacy efforts should focus not only on these issues and judicial responses, but also the administrative environment and ability for crimes to be redressed quickly. The Indian government passed an ordinance recognizing 90 percent of the recommendations, but left out two important ones. Marital rape has still been denied legal recognition, leaving women unsafe in the domestic space, and the armed forces have been left out of the punitive net. Both are grave omissions, and women’s organizations are contesting them strongly.
Strategy #2: Include Gender Education in the Curriculum
Since critical dialogues can lead to real change in society with positive outcomes for women and men, we must note that the education system can support these dialogues by introducing gender education in the curriculum to sensitize and empower both girls and boys. What is most significant in the recent events in India is that we have seen that girls and women (at least in urban areas) are finding their “voice” and are raising it. Critical dialogues and discussions around gender are taking place all over, in the media, universities, government, policymaking halls of power, schools, cafes, homes, and on the streets. Gender has become, at least for the now, an important issue. This transformation can and should happen in every school for every girl and boy. Even now, policymakers and civil society are considering the convening of a national-level working group in India to examine how education can promote positive gender norms.
Indeed, gender norms should receive special official focus in education systems, curricula and teacher training. Students must know the laws and recognize that women are entitled to an equal voice in the home and in society. Education helps girls and women develop their voice and the capacity to aspire to equality, based on the recognition of themselves as equal persons. We must include gender education in our core curriculum along with or as part of human rights education. This inclusion will help reduce one more gender gap—that of limiting the reproduction of inequality across generations—by enabling both boys and girls to examine gendered construction of identities and social norms, the underlying structures that perpetuate inequality and how to unlearn negative and harmful ideas about gender.
In order for gender education to be included in national curricula, it is necessary for ministries of education to approve and initiate a process whereby academics, gender experts, practitioners and educationists can work collaboratively to develop a graded curriculum for gender education, along with related teacher training courses. Schools provide an opportunity for intellectual discussions about gender roles, responsibilities and resulting power relations, which could help students gain a clearer perspective about what “equality” means in democratic societies. Making gender education a curricular subject will make the issue “official” and legitimate and create a generation of more egalitarian gender norms. A concerted effort is required by the international education and development community to influence policy at the country level in this direction.
Strategy #3: Include Men in the Conversation
If there is anything to rejoice and feel hopeful about for women on International Women’s Day, it is the support by men for the movement to better ensure women’s safety and opportunity in India. Men’s participation is something that all of us, men and women everywhere, should tenaciously hold on to in the fight for gender equality. We need male champions in every sphere: national politics, business, civil society, in homes and in schools. We all stand to gain from a society where everyone has a voice. Boys are open and willing to think about the issue seriously: The protests in India were led equally by young men and women.
The inclusion of boys and men in the struggle for gender equality is critical, and women and girls need them as allies. Women’s 