By Albert Vuoso;
Media Credit: MCT Campus
Mosaic Staff Writer,
Two National and International happenings occured this past month to help demonstrate the advancing role of Women in society. This article shall relay the information of both notable advancements.
A once lax and unresponsive judicial system in India and a notoriously male dominated Senate in the United States have made significant changes this month with the influence of women as their source.
Late this March, nearly three months after a female college student in New Delhi died from being gang-raped on a public bus, India’s Parliament passed a comprehensive bill to impose stronger penalties on men who attack women.
The bill will expand the definition of rape, increase the punishment for sex crimes and impose the death penalty for repeat offenders. The bill comes at a favorable time in India, due to the rising number of public rapes and grim violations against women.
Women’s rights activist and lawyer, Vrinda Grover, said to the New York Times, “I think this is an important moment, we have taken quite a few steps forward.”
India’s democracy has been noted in the past as an unjust system, and the passing of the rape bill has assuaged the vehement outcry from protesters and activists.
India’s president, Pranab Mukherjee, is expected to sign the bill into law within the upcoming weeks.
New advances for women did not only happen in India this past month, but in the United States senate as well. Twenty female senators, the highest in history, have been sworn into office and a record nine of those women have been appointed to lead several powerful committees.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat of Minnesota, said to the New York Times, “We are growing in number, but more importantly we are growing in our power.”
Women senators will now head committees responsible for dispensing billions of dollars within the government and creating strategies to aid in the fiscal battle on Capital Hill.
The other eighty senators, all male, have displayed enthusiasm and support for the newly inducted women. Ohio Senator, Rob Portman said to The New York Times, “They tend to be interested in finding common ground, so I think it’s going to have, and is having, a positive impact on the Senate.”
