This year, the theme for International Women's Day is 'DigitAll: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality'. But, back in India, there is a long way to go to talk about technology for gender equality. Here, it is a basic human biology that is still a stigma.
Ever since India started allocating specially focused gender budgets in 2006 with the hope of resolving gender inequality and supporting women's welfare and empowerment, every finance minister (at the centre) has increased the percentage of such focused government spending in their annual Budgets. In the 2023-24 Budget, the allocation made to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which makes and executes policies for the welfare of women and children, was Rs 25,448.75 crore, up 1.08 percent from the year-ago Budget.
These schemes mostly cover women's health, employment, education, family welfare and programmes aimed at social equality. But, one would wonder why the majority of women in the country still silently suffer from their physical and mental issues, without even discussing them with their own families.
A recent Survey to understand the local awareness levels, perceptions and experiences of women going through menopause and related issues, revealed that over 66 percent of women here with serious menopause issues not feeling comfortable talking about the related health concerns, even with their family as they would get worried and not understand how she felt.
What is a hot flash? What is a 'normal' menstrual cycle after the age of 40-45? These are a few of the symptoms & few of the many questions that women have on #menopause. In #TheMedicineBox, @ekta_batra dispels key misconceptions around menopause in a chat with Dr Amrinder Bajaj pic.twitter.com/nZ3BEgQPDa
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The ‘quality of life’ survey -- Understanding perceptions & experience with Menopause --conducted by global life sciences leader Abbott in partnership with market research consultant Ipsos, collected insights from over 1,200 people across seven major cities in India. Key findings of this survey revealed the impact of menopause across various aspects of life, with 82 percent of respondents believing that menopause impacts a woman’s personal well-being.
Further, 79 percent of respondents in the Survey believed that women are not comfortable discussing menopause with their family, friends, or colleagues. This rings an alarm that it is high time to recognise the need to raise awareness and encourage people to discuss menopause more freely and reach out for support.
Another surprising finding was the lack of better awareness about the symptoms of menopause. Though it is generally believed that females do understand as they are nearing menopause, only 70 percent of respondents were familiar with the symptoms such as hair loss, skin changes, weight gain, loss of concentration and interest, body pain, mood swings, lethargy and more are also signs of menopause along with irregular menses and age. Likewise, the respondents also showed the least familiarity with symptoms including – osteoporosis (23 percent) and weakness/fatigue/tiredness (23 percent).
The Survey also found that at least 35 percent of women didn't even go to a doctor when they faced health issues related to menopause and out of this 21 percent tried self-treatment such as yoga, home remedies, meditation etc.
Lack of discussion around women's health issues naturally leads to deprival of due care (medical as well psychological) to them.
Even though 84 percent of respondents believed more women need to talk about their experiences regarding menopause to increase awareness, the sticky issue here is a social stigma associated with menstruation and menopause, especially in the rural and semi-urban areas, stemming out of lack of information and poor education. The government schemes for increasing awareness often do not reach a wider population.
The absence of effective intervention by the government, as well as other social agencies, and poor accessibility to healthcare and psychological support systems, make things worse for the women.
So the need of the hour is to make the implementation of government schemes (funded through these focused gender budgets) more effective and target oriented. Increased awareness needs to be created through two-way communication, where information should flow from both sides.
While an overhaul in secondary education to include content related to growth, sex and reproduction cycles will raise the level of knowledge, making the medical and mental support and care easily accessible to the last mile population can address the needs. Hence, for effective implementation, let these practical measures be considered most critical when the policies are made and the budget allocations are made considering the requirement of connecting all the missing links.
First Published: Mar 8, 2023 9:44 AM IST
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