WRITE-UP

BY: RHYTHM KATYAL

STUDENT, B.A LLB
SYMBIOSIS LAW SCHOOL, NOIDA

TOPIC: Relevancy of Rule of Law in ensuring Gender Equality in

Society.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said “Independence means voluntary restraints and discipline,
voluntary acceptance of rule of law”. Our nation’s voluntary acceptance was explicitly seen post-
independence, when the people shifted their ultimate rule from ‘British Rule’ to the ‘Rule of
Law’. Rule of Law is a restriction on exercise of power by individuals by means of well
established procedures or laws. In India, the constitution is the representation of Rule of Law.
Over the years, this concept of governance and order has been positively associated with various
socio-economic developments, which includes higher GDP levels and lower infant mortality
rates. As we look further into the ideology behind this rule, we can actually focus on the
advantages this rule has brought with it, one of them being providing equality to people
belonging to different genders in the society.

In today’s world, there are more than 60 genders that people can be categorized into. As the
world is moving forward from the conventional meaning of ‘gender’, so is the rule of law. From
the past 2 centuries, we surely have witnessed major evolvement of gender roles in the society
and the credit for these changes is implicitly given to the Rule (of law). Great philosophers and
thinkers like Emile Durkheim have talked about ‘Division of Labor’ but the modern conception
established under the Rule talks about ‘Equity of Labor’. With establishment of the Rule of Law,
certain policy measures were introduced in order to reform the social and legal institutions,
ultimately rectifying the sexist norms in parallel to facilitate the promotion of gender equality.
Women are now given equal political, legal, social and economic status in the society;
homosexual marriages are being legalized in some states of countries like The United States;
asexuality, bisexuality, pan-sexuality are emerging concepts of sexual orientation; this all could
have been possible with the Rule of Law. The Rule has been stated in forms of certain
fundamental and legal rights which are not gender-specific but apply to the every citizen of a
particular nation.

In India, certain areas where the resources do not reach also lack the education necessary to
understand the Rule of Law. These are the areas where the Rule does not work due to less
number of people knowing about their rights. Female feticide, girl-child marriage, lack of
education to females or transgender, discarding transgender etc. are some very common
problems that are being faced by people in these areas. But yet again with the Rule of Law
developing, certain schemes have been introduced that aim to provide necessary education to
everyone in the nation, eventually aiming to gender equality and open-mindedness among the
people living in these underprivileged areas. Many bills and acts like The Protection of Women
from Domestic Violence Act, The Employees State Insurance Act, Rights of Transgender
Persons Bill and Maternity Benefit Act are few of the numerous acts/bills that have been passed
to establish gender equality and neutrality in different areas of day to day life. Various
commissions have been formed in order to maintain law and order among different genders in
the society.

With emergence of the millennial voices, the government of every country is trying to strengthen
the laws and form stringent measures for gender equality in society. As the evolution of ideas
can be witnessed, we can hope to see a world with no gender discrimination in few years.
Climbing on top of the list of preferred method of governance, the concept of Rule of Law surely
holds its expectations and gives us the opportunity to work for a better tomorrow!