Women’s Right to Education—A Narrative on International Law

Abstract

Placing women’s right to education within an essentially androcentric international legal framework, this article underpins various legal and social constraints that deter the translation of this right into a lived experience. Though international law illustrates education lucidly, especially in conjunction with non-discriminatory provisions and emphasises non-derogability, its implementation is dampened by feeble state obligations. Contrasts are drawn between the human rights discourse, which largely propounds claims on behalf of the dispossessed and the neo-liberal regime, which distances human agency and action. Drawing briefly on constitutional provisions, progressive judicial interpretations and people’s movements for education, this article nevertheless cautions that despite assertions to the contrary, India is still slotted ‘at risk’ in not reaching minimal thresholds in gender parity. Claims are made to retain the hegemony of this right as an agentive discourse, rather than as one which slots marginalised women as mere statistical references, discounting their subjugation and struggles.