The Study of Gender Audit to Measures Gender Biases in State Universities in Rajasthan

Against the backdrop of several incidences of sexual violence against women in different National Universities in India, specific critical questions need to be probed regarding the deep-seated gender biases persisting in the temples of building human capital. The Higher Educational Institutions may have adopted zero-tolerance policy frameworks against overt sexual harassment. Still, several sources of hegemonic masculinities are sustained by the higher educational institutions themselves and the prevailing academic environments. Embedded in the socio-cultural-psychological fabrics of society and being surfaced very often in discourses of political economy, the entrenched gender biases stifle policy and institutional delivery of women-centric human capital outcomes. Purging such predispositions against women become the codified milestones to be achieved in the erstwhile Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and are now being enforced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be met by 2022. Certain responsive policy measures need to find proactive applications in Higher Educational Institutions. The Gender Audit methodological tool applied in the research in selected eight state universities of Rajasthan demystifies the deep-seated biases against women in state universities