It is a crime to be born a woman in India.

These words, spoken by a female police officer in India after she was attacked and raped, are, in my opinion, among the clearest depictions of the status of women in India. In a country with 37 million more males than females, where pregnant women are encouraged to abort their female babies, and where males go under- or unpunished for beating and/or raping females, one can begin to understand where this police officer speaks from. In this report, we will examine the following how women are treated in respects to education, marriage, childbirth, and presence in the workplace, as well as the prevalence of female rape and murder within India. Without a doubt, India is a country of males, for males. From the time one is born a male, he is valued much more than a female. Males are preferred, as seen in this map taken from womanstats.org:

India is the darkest green, meaning that it highly favors males. This preference shows as well in the statistic that 300,000 to 600,000 female fetuses are aborted every year in India (Udas). Even before birth, females are discriminated against and this discrimination only grows with

age. Within the realm of education, it is rare for a female to be afforded the opportunity to attend primary or secondary school. Due to various caste and religious reasons, many parents dont send their daughters to school, ever, or stop their education after they reach puberty (Neelakantan). Two maps, taken from worldmapper.org show the lack of female attendance at primary (lefthand map) and secondary schools (right-hand map) by warping the countrys size based on number:

This lack of education for females, without a doubt, reflects their status in that the country seems to believe that women are not worth educating. They dont deserve to learn how to read or write, nor learn anything that would help them become successful in the work force, let alone enter it. A large number of women in India are illiterate as a result of the lack of schooling, as seen in the following map, also from worldmapper.org:

. Note how the number of illiterate women within the country correlates almost identically to the number of women not attending secondary school. It goes without saying, then, that there is a cycle for these uneducated women. Having not attended

school, the average woman in India is illiterate. She most likely cannot even write her own name. She does not work, but is instead forced into an arranged marriage at age 21 (as is the average age of a womans first marriage). From 21 onward, the woman is expected to bear two or more children, preferably male and raise them, dressing them better than herself, sending them to a school she never attended, and making sure they, and their father, are fed first and fed more, are always comfortable, and want for nothing. Sounds like a wonderful life, right? Now add to this description the fact that the womans husband sees it as acceptable to beat his wife, or even rape her. Even outside of marriage, it is viewed as okay for a man to beat a female relative, such as a sister or daughter. Every day, females of all ages are brutally raped and it is rare that the perpetrator receives a sentence that correlates to the severity of his crime. When a 23-year-old student in New Delhi was raped and died as a result, her attackers went severely under-punished. But this 23-year-old student is, or was, not alone. More than 24,000 [rapes were] reportedin 2011, [with] more than half of the victimsaged between 18 and 30 (Biswas). Furthermore, crimes against women on a whole are on the rise. Murder over dowries, torture, molestation, kidnappings, and trafficking in 2011 rose between 2.7 and 122 percent. The author of this report hopes that the preceding facts and statistics are enough to show the reader the inarguably low status of women in India. Whether or not they were, this report ends with this. TrustLawhas ranked India the worst G20 country in which to be a woman (Biswas).

Works Cited Udas, S. (2013, January 12). Challenges of being a woman in India - CNN.com.CNN.com Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Retrieved October 20, 2013, from http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/12/world/asia/india-womenchallenge/index.html Trivedi, A., & Timmons, H. (2013, January 16). India's Man Problem.International New York Times. Retrieved October 20, 2013, from india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/indiasman-problem/?_r=0 Son Preference and Sex Ratios. (n.d.).WomanStats. Retrieved October 20, 2013, from http://womanstats.org/compressedimgs/Issa_scale_11SWEDENOKcompressed.jpg Neelakantan, S. (2010, June 10). India | Education | Girls | GlobalPost. World News | Breaking US News and International News Headlines - GlobalPost. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/education/100607/education-indiagirls?page=0,1 Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before. (n.d.). Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=201 Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before. (n.d.). Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=202

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before. (n.d.). Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=198 Biswas, S. (n.d.). BBC News - How India treats its women. BBC - Homepage. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20863860