Perhaps, men are no better off than women.

 "The Indian economy may contract or stagnate this fiscal but it will bounce back to be among the fastest growing in the world next year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said." The minister is a woman. Can she promise a similar growth rate for women in India? "Women's share in new payroll additions fell below the 20% mark in August, part of a gradual decline in female participation in formal work over the past few months, according to government data. The latest monthly data showed a sharp decline from 2019-20 when women's participation in formal work was almost 23%." "According to data payroll collected from the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), 669,914 people joined the formal workforce in August, and only 133,872 of them, or just 19.98%, were females -- down marginally from 20.49% in July and 21.11% in  June." Shameful figures. While female labor force participation rate (LFPR) has increased to 36% in neighboring Bangladesh it has fallen to 20% in India, according to the World Bank. Hence, "The IMF sees India's per capita GDP (in dollar terms at current prices) falling to $1,877 in 2020 a decline of 10.3 percent. For Bangladesh, the corresponding figure is seen growing to $1,888, a rise of 4 percent." "While why this has happened remains a matter of debate, its implied loss was quantified by a McKinsey Global Institute report in 2018, which said that India would gain $770 billion in output by 2025 if women had the same opportunities to work as men," wrote an editorial in the Mint. Women have to do a lot of unpaid work, such as housework, looking after children, looking after old parents. In Australia women do 5 hrs, 11 minutes of unpaid work to 2 hrs, 11 minutes for men, while in India women do 5 hrs, 52 minutes of unpaid work to just 52 minutes for men. "According to Unicef, 650 million women alive today were married before they turned 18. India is home to 223 million or one in three of these child brides," wrote Prof Shruti Rajagopalan. "India has one of the highest levels of female feticide, where female fetuses are aborted through sex selection technology." Last month, a low caste (Dalit) woman was gang-raped and battered in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh (UP), and died after 2 weeks. "But neither of the young woman's two allegations of rape, made within hours of being attacked, were entered into police records," wrote Geeta Pandey. Dalit women in India are the most oppressed of all women in the world, wrote Soutik Biswas. "These women, who comprise about 16% of India's female population, face a 'triple burden' of gender bias, caste discrimination and economic deprivation." However, if women are being oppressed by a patriarchal society, then men in India should be ecstatic. Turns out, "For every 100 suicide deaths, 70.2 were male and 29.8 females, the NCRB, which collects data from police recorded cases, stated." Perhaps, life in India is generally miserable. And misery turns people into beasts.