There could be no more heartening news than about four women candidates topping the civil services exams, thereby extending a well-established trend. The number of toppers as well as women qualifiers is also rising by the year. It is not only a case of girls excelling in school leaving exams and the like but women are also proving themselves capable in such career and life defining tests like the civil service entrance exams.
The gender wars in academic performance and in women breaking the glass ceiling have become routine suggesting a huge transformation had come about in society since the days ruled by previous generations in which sex discrimination in life, academics and jobs was clear. Over decades, girls have been proving themselves capable of competing on equal terms with boys in the academic world. But greater change has come about recently because they are also shedding inhibitions and excelling in the field of sports and other extracurricular activities.
This trend of women establishing gender scholastic superiority has become more distinct in the most modern age when they are the equals of men in so many fields, including in the armed forces. And they are doing all this despite the distractions of the era like the Internet and the ubiquitous smart devices that transport them on a digital superhighway in the age of information, which of course applies to all.
What this progress among women should do is to help bring about a complete transformation in thinking among Indian men and their families which in the past had discriminated against the fairer sex to the extent of taking sex determination tests and eliminating the girl child by choice. So much so, the country had to ban gender tests on foetuses.
The willing acceptance of the concept of working women competing on level terms with males, more noticeable in urban settings but spreading into the hinterland now, is what has changed for India to be a more confident nation in which one half discriminated against has come of age after winning the battle of the sexes. More power to women achievers is what will drive India into a fairer future.
