Are Women’s Issues Synonymous with Gender in India? Looking Across Geographic Space

This paper attempts to shift the focus from ‘women’ to the significance of the gender equation by assessing the intensity of gender disparity across geographic space, and enquiring into the reasons for these persisting inequalities. A basic question that needs to be answered is whether women are equally unequal across geographic space. India, with a multitude of distinct regional contexts, provides a good testing ground. As the states of the Indian union have distinct regional entities, inter-state gender disparities would reflect both economic and socio-cultural diversities grounded in historical realities. [IEG working paper no. 330].