Patriarchy is the biggest reason of poverty in india!
Hi, I am a medical student. We have college visits to poor neighbourhoods where we have to collect all kinds of personal information about families living there, from the jobs they do to the number of abortion or miscarriages they had over the years. These families survive on 15k to 20k income per month with 2-3 children. They are heavily malnourished, and poor. Even the children have kwashiorkor, Pneumonia, TB, recurrent diarrhoea etc.
So the main thing I noticed for which I needed to write this post is that in all the families its the men who work and women stay home. When I ask about their education, in all the families the women are more educated than their husbands! Yet the one working is the man and the one staying home is the woman.
When I ask the women why they are not working when they know they could have better paying jobs then their husbands and could provide a better life for their children then all give the same answer - "we are women we need to look after the house" !!?? They will let their children be in poverty rather than take a stand and make better living conditions!
So it's not like they are poor because they don't have anything, they are poor because they don't WANT to do anything! Even for the kids! For them gender roles are more important than seeing their child being healthy and going to school! And those men also believe in the same idea... Women should not work!!