Women can help in promoting gender equality in India

I grew up in a world where women are respected, educated, loved and protected; a world where my father spends time in the kitchen and my mother is instrumental in the running of family businesses. I never realised that this was not the norm. I understood feminism in theory but with strong female role models around me, I thought it was an outdated practice, and that as I would grow up, I would be afforded the same privileges as any man, treated as an equal, and that the women around me were first-generation, post-gender equality women, not the movers and shakers still fighting the social glass ceiling.
In retrospect, I understand why I never understood gender inequality fully as a teenager: everything I saw of what men and women should be came from my family, and I thought this was an extension of India. Summering in Punjab and Delhi had me meeting educated women who were respected. I saw a country where the fourth Prime Minister was a woman, where young people were encouraged into technology and engineering, and where one was judged on merit, not gender. It filled me with pride to see that part of me came from a culture that was so forward-thinking towards women that what I had considered to be the norm as a child was actually encouraged and celebrated.
Then I grew up, as did India. With the country's development and the strides it is taking in becoming a modern-day superpower, a light shines brightly illuminating two very different aspects of India's reality. On one hand, we see intelligent, tolerant, and charming people who represent the best of India - the people that share information, question the norm, and encourage dialogue and human growth. Opposing them: the ones appropriating what it means to be Indian.
But, who are they exactly? It would be simplistic to say they are the uneducated and backwards men who have not adjusted to India on a global scale, and it would be unfair to say they are the rural leftovers of a developing urban jungle. But for me, it is more damaging to say they are only men.
Looking at the role model women I met and the women they grew up around, it becomes easy to see why we have a problem of India being perceived as unequal and bias towards women, and more so than many other countries that have similar problems. It does not matter how many wonderful and strong women you meet, our perception of gender equality begins at home.
The women who pass on an ideology of inequality to new generations and judge those who challenge it are damaging to both gender equality and the global perception of India. The women who treat their daughters as fragile and second class citizens are teaching them that they are unworthy and easily broken, and when they do this, they are teaching their sons that it is acceptable to treat women like this also. And this is what we need to start changing.
By re-educating women on their worth, we can change the inherited ideology of inequality. We can encourage women to be good role models in the home and influence younger generations moving forward. By doing this, we not only provide better female role models to our youth, we influence gender bias and the global perception of India in its attitude towards women.