Socio-economic conditions of women : (i) The literacy rate among women is only 54 per cent compared with 76 per cent among men. (ii) The proportion of women among the highly paid and valued jobs is still very small. (iii) In almost all areas of work, women are paid less than men, even when both do exactly the same work. (iv) In many parts of India, parents prefer to have sons and find ways to have the girl-child aborted before she is born. Political expression of gender division has helped to some extent but not as much as is required. Due to reservation of seats for women in the local government bodies, now there are more than 10 lakh elected women representatives in rural and urban local bodies. But a lot needs to be actually done in the society to end the gender divisions.