The article ‘Of Women and Water; How Drought Exacerbates Gender Inequality in India’ written by Elke Weesjes talks about the water situation in India and how it affects women. The water scarcity is caused by fluctuating weather patterns and affects almost 18 States in India. About 330 million residents are affected and women have to ensure a home has water. This weather pattern affects the behavior of people. In a society that views men to be superior to women, women are given the task of taking care of the home and ensure the family is well fed and has water. This affects the position of women in the society.
Inconsistent weather patterns affect the girl child since she is viewed as a solution to the drought problem. She is overworked and often goes hungry. Her health, reproductive and menstrual cycle are affected because she wakes up early, eats little food and she is the last one to retire to bed. This behavioral pattern is based on the attitude that women are lesser beings and they deserve to be mistreated. The cycle keeps going on and it is worse during drought since life becomes difficult for them. The Indian culture has glorified men and diminished the role of a woman in the society. This attitude affects the society from one generation to the next because it is carried forward. Initiatives such as the Sarvajal (water for all) serve 300,000 people across about 12 states in India. The initiative has solved the major underlying problem, which is water scarcity. The elimination of this problem breaks the behavioral patterns that previously existed. Women travelled long distances to look for water now that the water is within their reach, they have more time to do their work and send girls to school. The initiatives solved the water problem, which eventually solved the behavior of men towards women. Men can now listen to women, which never happened before. Women can leave the confines of their homes and interact with other women. Girls also have time to go to school since they do not have to skip school to queue for water. Solving the water situation solved the problem of gender inequality in India (Weesjes, 2016).
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The situation in India can be discussed using the behavioral paradigm. Behavioral patterns in the society are reinforced through observation. As the practice becomes popular, children born in such societies grow up adopting the behavior they are accustomed to seeing. This creates a paradigm that cannot be easily broken. A shift or change in the core cause of the problem is the only way to solve the behavioral pattern. The society is structured in a way that reinforces certain patterns of behavior; it takes a lot of effort to break such patterns. For instance in India, the fact that women were voiceless affected the way men looked at them. This is simply because they were not given any form of power in the community. Once women were enlightened and had something to offer, they had the attention of men since they had something to give. This simply implies; to change the behavior paradigm, a new behavior needs to be reinforced that will shadow the dominant behavior; this is the only way to bring change to the society. It also takes strong will and determination to solve such issues. To add on this, the underlying cause of the behavior needs to be addressed. For instance, it would be useless to build more schools and force girls to go to school. This approach would not have worked; men still need water and women had to provide it. Solving the water problem was the only way to solve the education problem, which was eventually used to empower women in the society (Miller, 1995).
References
Miller, G. A. (1995). The Behavioral High-Risk Paradigm in Psychopathology . New York, NY: Springer New York.
Weesjes, E. (2016). Of Women and Water; How Drought Exacerbates Gender Inequality in India. Natural Hazards Cente r. Retrieved August 7, 2016 from; https://hazards.colorado.edu/article/of-women-and-water-how-drought-exacerbates-gender-inequality-in-india
