From: peram@cs.tamu.edu (Suresh B Peram)
Subject: Women - India vs US
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:12:04 GMT


Happiness is very subjective.  A woman born and raised in
India may be happy and content in the role that she plays
probably because her expectations have been shaped in that
way by the environment.  A woman with different expectations
may not be happy.  However, society in the broad sense is
the same for everybody and this leads to the happiness and
the discontentment in different women.

Having said this, any discussion on whether US or India is
better for women should avoid as much of subjectivity as
possible and focus on any objective fundamentals.  

People are more happy when they have the freedom to do what
they want to do.  However, such freedom is limited by many
things like society, law, physics etc.  In the US, it is
more limited by law and India by the society.  Although,
laws are made by people, they are written laws, they are
as objective as a language can be, they can be argued upon
and they can be challenged in a court.  It is more difficult
to handle societal laws because they are invisible.  They
cannot be radically altered without a large scale social
reform movement.  

It is the intricate balance between one's expectations and
the limitations imposed either by law or society that results
in the happiness state of a person.  

Sexual harrassment is illegal both in India and US.  There 
are many laws in India that address 'eve teasing' and
occassionally you will find police men taking custody of
'roudy' gangs.   However, disproportionately large number
of these cases go unpunished.  This can be attributed to
undermanned and underpaid and undermotivated police force,
overcrowding in public places, urbanization in all its
aspects, and poverty.   In the US, a woman is probably 
not faced with as much of 'vulgar' intrusions as in India.
However, she is not immune from violent sexual assualts.
Hence, the perception of 'rape' as 'violence' instead of
'sex'.   People who say that India is safer for women
than US are downplaying the cases of violent sexual
assault and those who are for US do the same with the
'eve teasing' in India.   Note that both in India and in
the US, most rapists are not convicted.  Is 'daily 
harrassment' better than a 'rape' ?

We have discussed in the above paragraph, just one issue
that concerns women, viz. sexual harrassment.  Next, let
us look at women's career in her profession.

Women have this unique problem of having to bear children.
( Ahaa, some may say 'why should they ?' ) This means that
she has to devote a lot of time (years ?) to motherly
chores.   A man does not have as much responsibility and
consequently more free.   The American woman has chosen to
handle this by having very few children.  However, the Indian
woman is still burdened with raising 3 to 4 children on the
average.  This restricts an Indian woman's career in many
different ways.   What is the cause for this phenomenon ?
Firstly, many women have been raised with lower expectations
and they feel it is their responsibility to have children.
Secondly, some women are not exposed to the possibilities
of an independent career.  However, most importantly, most
women are not well-educated.  In a family with limited
resources, it is always the male who has a better chance
of getting more educated.  This type of bias comes from the
family structure in India, to a great extent.  The woman is
seen as somebody who has to leave the family to join her
husband's family and so the family is not willing to invest
much more than required to get her married.  How do you 
handle this problem ?  Social reform ?   In view of all this,
one can say that in the US, women have more freedom to
choose and pursue the carrer of their choice.

Also, a lot depends on how easy it is for a single woman to
survive in the society.  I have always wondered about this.
Can somebody discuss the pros and cons of a single woman
in India living independently ?

Finally, the family & related structures.  It becomes very
subjective here.  Which type of structure gives more
happiness to a woman ?  I don't know.  Probably, both are
about the same.

Suresh