UGC NET/JRF EXAM, June-2021 WOMEN’S STUDIES

According to International Labour Organisation (ILO), unemployment remains unacceptably high especially among women. Two billion of world's employed population, representing 61.2% of global employment, work in the informal sector.

Informal work refers to work carried out in the absence of labour regulation and with little or no social protection coverage, presenting a major challenge for sustainable development.

Within the broad category of informal work, women tend to occupy the more disadvantaged positions and are more likely than men to work in more vulnerable settings including as contributing family workers and home based workers.

Further more, most people take up informal work not by choice but as a result of lack of opportunities in the formal economy. One of the main gain of the past two decades has been in the increasing access to education, with positive implications for women and girls life chances.

In developing countries, secondary education attendance is correlated with declines in early marriage and adolescent child bearing. More work remains to be done interms of closing substantial gaps among different groups of girls and reaching girls in rural areas, those belonging to minority ethnic groups and those in the poorest households.

In addition, the narrowing gender gaps in education have not been matched by similar improvements in labour market outcomes and effective access for women to economic opportunities which may enhance their well-being and amplify their voices within and beyond their families from economic deprivation.

Which of the following areas ILO advocates, to be focussed upon for closing the gaps in achievements for women and girls:

(a) Decline in early marriage among girls
(b) Reduction in adolescent child bearing
(c) Improved access to health care facilities
(d) More women into skill development

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

Statement I: Most women takes up informal work not by choice but as a result of the lack of opportunities in the formal economy.
Statement II: Women benefit from the earnings of the other members of the family and the intra household transfer has been quite favourable to women.

In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:

Assertion (A): Women are engaged increasingly in informal sector are in disadvantages position without social security and work in vulnerable work settings compared to men.
Reason (R): Women and their work are hardly covered under labour regulations and social security policies.

In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:

Dalit Women's subjugation is materially embedded, that is Dalit women are thrice subjugated: as women, as dalit woman and as dalit women who perform stigmatised labour.

Caste inequality and exploitation is most visible, they argue in dalit and lower caste women's profoundly unequal access to resources of basic survival such as water and sanitation facilities, as well as the educational institutions, public places and sites of religious worship.

Dalit women have been targets of upper caste violence at the same time, dalit women have also functioned as the property of dalit men. The status of dalit women as sexual property of their community, and of the community of men at large has made sexual vulnerability an important site of intervention.

Violence in its spectacular as well as everyday manifestation has come to represent the inhumanity of the caste order. In turn dalit activists have been especially vocal in demanding the act of violation be recognized as an abuse of human rights.

The UN world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in Durban, South Africa from 31 August to 7 September 2001 reflected the significance of mass mediated publicity and a globally available discourse of historic hurt and suffering in internationalizing the problems of untouchability.

While the Government of India argued that focussing on caste discrimination diluted the aims of the conference, dalit representatives such as those belonging to NFDW insisted that caste discrimination approximates the practices of racism.

Why have dalit feminist demanded a changed politics of feminism?