A Study on Mahatma Gandhi’s Perceptions of Women

Over the last few thousand years, there have been several significant shifts in the position of women in India. Throughout history, women have had equal standing with males. This trend peaked in the Middle Ages, but many reformers, including Mahatma Gandhi, have since worked to further equal rights. Women in India have had a long and storied history. During the Middle Ages, when practices like sati, child marriage, and the prohibition on widow remarriage spread across India, the status of women declined even more. One of the most pressing issues facing the world in the twenty-first century is the advancement of women. However, progress for women is still a mirage in the actual world. Victimization of women by societal ills is something we see every day. Certainly, the nation's progenitor, Mahatma Gandhi, had dabbled in this area a century earlier, paving the road for women's advancement. Among Gandhi's priorities in social transformation is the advancement of women, even if this is not central to his program. He fought for women's emancipation and advancement. The role that women have played throughout human history and development was something he emphasized. Men should not consider themselves superior to women, he said, since nature has endowed both sexes with equal ability.