Posts Tagged: women’s land rights

We are inspired by the possibility of strengthening women’s land rights as a way to empower women socially and economically. One such potential benefit concerns the ways in which land rights may protect women from domestic or gender-based violence – a relevant topic as the global community observes the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence.

The ideal of a married woman decorated with sindoor, sakha, and bichiya is romanticized through legend and folklore; steeped in this culture, women themselves see value in these rituals. Millions of women in India do not even imagine that these discriminatory and patriarchal rituals are not supernaturally ordained and blind them to the reality that the revered status given to suhagins causes untold suffering to any woman (widow) who does not fit the ideal.