Women in India have decried a “blatantly misogynistic” and “regressive” question in a national school board examination for tenth grade students.
“The education ministry must seriously do an enquiry, and the one who made the question should be punished severely,” said Sister Joel Urumpil, a social worker in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.
She was reacting to reports about a question set by the Central Board of Secondary Education that appeared in the reading comprehension section.
The question reportedly contains sentences such as “women gaining independence is the main reason for a wide variety of social and family problems.”
Sister Urumpil of the Sisters of Charity Nazareth called on the media and other institutions “to expose the rotten mindset and cry foul.”
The issue drew national attention when Congress Party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi raised the “blatantly misogynistic” and “shockingly regressive passage” in the parliament.
Addressing the Lok Sabha, she urged the education ministry to not just apologize but conduct a thorough inquiry into how the question, which “reflected poorly” on standards of education and testing, found its way into the exam.
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