GENDER EQUALITY AND YOUTH IDENTITY IN DIGITAL AGE
The paper focuses on the gender equality on men and women, and diverse challenges to fight to keep to its standards and live at par with the society and its broader growth; the identity of the youth in the global digital world. The role of youth in strive for their identity through hands on milestones to achieve. Gender equality is a practical norm which lives active when it is achieved and exercised equally by both men and women through every opportunity that comes their way across all sectors of society, which encompasses economic participation and decisionmaking at large, and when both the genders are valued equally and favored with their diverse needs, behaviors, and aspirations. Gender equality can be measured by looking at the representation of men and of women in a range of roles. For Ex: Maternity leave is applicable differently in different countries. In UK its different and in Sweden its different. The wages paid during the maternity leave is different for me and for women. Each index in international comparative gender equality indices looks at a distinct list of parameters and the choice of parameters affects the outcome for each country. The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) EU Gender Equality Index provides an easily interpretable measure of gender equality in the EU across 6 key policy domains Work Money Knowledge Time Power Health Also, adolescence has long been viewed in Western cultures as a period of individual self searching. Newly aware of a world beyond their immediate sphere of experience, youth begin to contemplate What role (or roles) they will assume How they will be recognized by others What contributions they will make to society. In the rapidly changing, interconnected, and technological world, the number of roles open to today's generation of youth has never been greater. Digital media technologies have expanded adolescents' range of self expression, as well as the potential audiences for those expressions. INTRODUCTION Gender equality, also known as sexual equality, it is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, the concepts like economic participation and decision making involved creates a better hue in the radiance of equality and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations and needs equally, regardless of gender. The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) EU Gender Equality Index provides an easily interpretable measure of gender equality in the EU across 6 key policy domains work, money, knowledge, time, power and health, and two satellite domains (violence and intersecting inequalities) Definition of Gender: Gender refers to those characteristics and distinctrole of men and women that are socially constructed on their diverse behavior's, activities and attributes that are accepted appropriate for men and women. Gender is aset of mixed social roles and relations between men and women of the same society. It affects all facets of human life like social, economic and political arenas and so on. It is about the power entity exercised by both in the society. Gender Analysis is a methodology that both: Describes existing gender relations in a particular environment, ranging from within households or firms to a larger scale of community, ethnic group, or nation. It involves collecting and analyzing sex disaggregated data and other qualitative and quantitative information. Organizes and interprets the information about gender relations in making clear importance of gender differences for achieving overall development objectives. AIM OF THE STUDY This study explores how the youth can promote gender equality in their daily access to life. It enables the youth to know to correlate themselves at par with each other, without any gender discriminations and to co relate to the gender stream and to consider equal opportunities for men and women. (c) 2019 JETIR February 2019, Volume 6, Issue 2 www.jetir.org (ISSN 2349 5162) JETIRY006075 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 400 Objectives: The main objective of the study is to know how youth perceives the Gender equality and concerns regarding its promotion and contribution. And to inflate gender awareness and knowledge among the Youth To allow the youth to explore on practical gender oriented projects and to gauge the gender and power relations. EXPLORING GENDER CONCEPTS Gender integrated approaches treat women and men on variety of arenas such as relative, social, political, economic, educational, and health statuses which are interrelated, intersectional and interdependent, and are changeable to a larger extent. Consequently, to be successful, gender focused health programs often have to be multi sectorial and engage a wide variety of women and men stakeholders, regardless of whether the focus of the program is on women's, children's, or men's health. Gender Equality The state or condition that offers women and men equal enjoyment of human rights, socially valued goods, opportunities and resources, allowing both the sexes same opportunities and potential to contribute to and benefit from all sections of the society. Gender Identity The basis of the very birth of this gender is the difference in the genes of a man and a woman respectively. This brings in the idea of the materfraternity and the pater fraternity to rule the society with the utmost importance in their living vicinity. There are many different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non binary, agender, pan gender, gender queer, two spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these accepting the bare fact the man and women rule it all. Male is used to refer to men or boys, or the sex that fertilizes eggs, and does not produce babies or eggs itself. Female, a woman or girl can give birth to young or lay eggs. Transgender a person with gender identity or gender expression that varies from their assigned sex at the time of birth. With medical assistance they can change from one sex to another. Gender neutral means that something is not associated with either women or men. Non binary people do not identify with traditionally understood gender binary. They don't identify as a boy or girl. Agender is being gender less. It means without a gender identity or gender neutral. Pan gender is a nonbinary gender defined as being more than one gender. Gender queer also known as non binary. These people may express a combination of masculinity and femininity, or neither, in their gender expression. Two spirit is a modern, pan Indian, umbrella team used by some indigenous North Americans to describe certain people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third gender ceremonial role in their culture. Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. Gender Sensitization Gender sensitization refers to modification of gender behaviors through rising awareness of gender equality. It is continuous learning process in which all genders are taught to respect each gender irrespective of their own personal gender. Gender Society Every society has its own set of gender regulations that can help in the foundation of the formation of a person's social identity amidst the members of society.A gender role also known as sex role which socially encompasses diverse behaviours that differ the masculine and feminine categories respectively. Whereas society is the medium where it expects different genders to act differently and live differently. Sometimes it treats a particular job as gender specific and if the other gender performs the task it starts humiliating the act of that gender irrespective of the need of the moment. Participation of men and women in different fields of work determines the outcome of the results of their actions. If it has a positive result then it is appreciated else it will be taunted for the rest of their lives. Gender perception in digital age How digital age impacts Gender New digital tools are empowering. Gender gap in science, technology engineering and mathematics field grows with the age. Software development seems to be more dominated by the male genders rather than their female counter parts. The digital platforms offer men and women with various opportunities to browse more information and know more things which are deprived from the non usage of the digital technologies. Digital technologies have vast potential to improve many aspects of day to day work life all over the world. The use of ICT improves businesses by ensuring better communication and information. Differences in resources and ability to access to different digital technologies available all over the world made way for the digital gender differences. Especially in emerging economies women have been deprived from usage of technological advancements happening worldwide. Because, some regions in the world consider women as a weaker sex in the society and hence not been exposed to different fields of study irrespective of religion, caste and creed; and digitization is far away from the reach of people living in remote places. There are some encouraging signs in this area of late, but the road is still very long. The career paths for boys and girls have started to diverge. They both have become more participative due to technological advancements happening and hopefully the gender gap reduces. (c) 2019 JETIR February 2019, Volume 6, Issue 2 www.jetir.org (ISSN 2349 5162) JETIRY006075 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 401 Gender Mainstreaming: A tool kit for creating agents of change :Gender Mainstreaming is the process of incorporating a gender perspective into policies, strategies, programs, project activities, and administrative functions, as well as into the institutional