By IANS
Dhaka : The election of Pratibha Patil as the first woman president of India could lead to more women taking part in decision making in South Asia, a Bangladeshi newspaper said Monday.
Although India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have had women prime ministers, The New Age noted that this had not particularly boosted women's welfare and led to their greater participation in national life.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh "have all seen women in power for the large part of the past three decades or so. (But) women's empowerment, in the true sense of the term, has not yet taken place in any of these countries," it reported.
"In fact, women remain neglected as ever, especially in decision making, be it at the familial or societal or national level. Worse even, they are not afforded the dignity that they deserve as human beings. The reason is simple: society in this part of the world is still patriarchal as is the political thought process," The New Age added.
"Political and social empowerment of women in the subcontinent has by and large been limited to rhetoric even though they constitute half the population," the English language daily noted in an editorial.
South Asian woman, it said, "finds herself a prisoner of the patriarchal thought process and pushing a patriarchal agenda".
Of Patil, the newspaper said: "It is not that we expect her to make a serious dent in the essentially patriarchal mindset of the Indian body politic overnight. However, we believe she is in a position to make a stronger case for increased participation of women in the decision- and policy-making of the state and the government."
India, it said, has had "a horrendous record of repression on women, which, in many cases, begins even before they are born".
Quoting studies on female foeticide in India, the daily said: "The patriarchal mindset that has dominated the country and the region for so many centuries cannot be deconstructed overnight. It will take sustained effort over a sustained period of time."