Women in the Indian Society

In the historical period, women in the Indian society did not have equality with the men, although they were awarded the status of the goddess. The roots of this discrimination go back to the ancient times where the women were considered to be confined to domestic chores. According to a great Hindu writer, "be a young girl, be a young woman or even be an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her house". Hence, this type of thinking still prevails in the Indian society. Due to this, there is a wide disparity in the literacy level of the males and females. As a result of this gender discrimination women are suppressed and are not allowed to come forward in various sectors.

To overcome this problem, steps have been initiated by several government and non-government organizations. Many companies in India are planning to arrange flexible working hours for women, allowing them to work near their partner's workplace. Various organizations such as Pepsi, ICICI bank consider that women managers have their own distinctive style and attitude, which helps in increasing the profitability of the organization.

However, women are still not accepted in many higher-rank jobs because it is presumed that certain jobs are meant to be handled only by men. Therefore, women are not encouraged to take the jobs which involve lot of travelling, living away from their homes or working till late in the night. This type of segregation hampers the career progression of the females in the Indian society.(Benson, 2006)

The status of women entrepreneurs in India is steadily increasing however; women employees still do not possess higher positions in the corporate world. According to The Financial Express (2006), only 2.3% of women hold the posts of legislators, senior managers and officials in the companies. Women in the age group of 29-59 years comprise of 54.9% of the total population but still they constitute only 17.8% of the total employees in the organized sector. Therefore, it clearly indicates that women are not given the same priority in work as their male- counterparts.

Koshal et al(1998) states that women entrepreneurship is a recent phenomenon. All over the world only 5% of the total corporate jobs are handled by females. Also, most of the top positions in many organizations are generally occupied by the men and only 2 to 3 percent of these jobs go in the kitty of women.

Benson(2006) highlights that the number of women entrepreneurs is steadily increasing in the Indian economy. However, the presence of women in management is only 3-5 % in India compared to around 10% globally. The presence of women can be seen mainly in service sector, HR related jobs and IT Industry. On the contrary their participation in hard-core jobs such as marketing or production is considerably less.

Women entrepreneurs hold a dignified position in many countries like USA,