Yep, the 10th and 12th Board results are out and as usual, it is the girls who have topped the exams be it CBSE, ICSE or state boards. While that is a matter of pride, no doubt, the query that remains is where do these girls disappear after 12th? Why are there not more girls in colleges, more women in the corporate world? Why do they suddenly quit the stage?

Let’s talk statistics, shall we? In CBSE class 12th board exams, for the fourth consecutive year in 2018, a girl topped the exams and of the 13 who scored top marks, 11 were girls. Also, as per government data, there are more girls than boys enrolled in secondary and senior secondary schools across India.

But after all this, in the Indian Institute of Technology, one female takes admission for every 10 males, in the Indian Parliament there are just 61 women MPs out of 543, and only seven women have been judges in the Supreme Court in over 70 years?

Only 23.7% of eligible women are part of the workforce compared to 75% of men and a mere percentage of 12.4% of women in India’s corporate boardrooms. Well, with such discouraging figures, it is going to take 50 years for women to be equal to men in legislative bodies as per the UN 2017 data.

So, it leaves us, yet again, with the question of where do these girls disappear off to after clinching such top scores in their boards? What stops them from pursuing higher education, or a job? Well, the answer is our patriarchal society, helmed by the insecure Indian males, be it our dad, grandad, husband, brother, friend, or father-in-law. Even the moms and mothers-in-law support them in their attempts to stifle a girl’s aspirations.

She can’t go to a college in a different city because she is a girl, after marriage her in-laws stop her from working due to the senseless logic that ‘Bahus don’t work outside in the house.’ Motherhood combined with ‘taking care of the house and its people’ become her sole task in life, eliminating them from even attempting to achieve their goals.

H/T: The Quint