Challenges to Women Representation in India

Women have had the constitutional right to vote in India since 1950, on exactly equal terms with men. Walk into the Lok Sabha, though, and you will find women occupy nowhere near half the seats. The right to vote turned out to be only the first, easiest problem to solve.

In two minutes

Despite full legal equality in the right to vote and to contest elections, women remain significantly under-represented in India's legislatures, held back by patriarchal party structures, unequal access to campaign resources and party tickets, social and safety barriers to public political life, and only partial, unevenly implemented legal reservation.

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