Women at the Margins: Organizations, Social Structures, and Gender Norms in Rural India

Abstract

This sustainability story is about women living at the margins in the global south. Poverty and gender inequality affect women disproportionately and far more negatively than men because of women’s relatively lower education levels, lack of access to financial capital, perceived lower status, and being deprived of basic freedoms because of restrictive social institutions, such as gender norms. Gender norms are embedded in values, beliefs, and specific social and cultural settings and tend to place structured disadvantages on women’s access to diverse opportunities, including economic, health, and justice. Women in India face economic and structural barriers to participating not only outside the household, but also within the household. Taking an interdisciplinary, lens the questions I ask in this sustainability story are: what does it take for women living in rural India to develop their entrepreneurial capacity to escape poverty? What is the role of social structures such as microcredit groups and intermediary or social service organizations [nongovernmental organizations] in facilitating this? What is the effect of women’s participation in the social structure of the microcredit groups and the development of their entrepreneurial capacity on traditional gender norms of women and men in rural India?