Pic by G. Moorthy
MADURAI: Though women are thriving in various fields from medicine to engineering compared to the backward state they were in till few decades before, there was still a long and often frustrating journey ahead for their full empowerment, said Penelope Duerksen-Hughes, Associate Dean, School of Medicine, Loma Linda University (LLU).
Speaking at the inauguration of second international conference on ‘Women and power - challenges and opportunities’ here at The American College on Friday, she said that education, health and rights over resources should be the key focus areas on the path towards empowerment.
“We need not go back too far in history. Our mothers and grandmothers will tell us the way they lived without any rights and exposure. Delivering babies was considered their primary responsibility,” Ms. Penelope said, adding that even the average life expectancy of women was lesser at that time compared to women due to deaths during child births.
She said that though many societies have overturned the situation, there are still places where women did not even have voting and property rights. “They also do not have freedom of movement in many places as was evident in the Nirbhaya rape case in New Delhi in 2012,” she said.
Rachel Star, an alumna of The American College and Assitant Professor with the School of Education in Indiana University Southeast, said that women were succeeding in all walks of life despite adversities because of their resilience.
Aruni Wilson, Associate Professor, School of Medicine, LLU, said that though women had equal participation in decision-making in families in western countries, it was still not the case in India.
M. Davamani Christober, Principal, The American College, highlighted that the college had always played a leading role in women empowerment. “The college was admitting girls since 1930s and even had hostels for them. Today, girls outnumber boys in all post-graduate courses and in many under-graduate courses. Women also constitute almost 50 per cent of the faculty,” he said.
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