Developing countries and developed countries differ greatly when it comes to the role that women play in the society, politics and economics. In fact, what seems to distinguish developing countries most from developed ones is the education level, responsibilities, quality of life, legal rights, economic status and occupation,(if any) of the women in that country. For example, in the developing country of India, women are very low on the totem pole of society, while in a more developed country such as Japan, women have a much more active role in society and are virtually equal to men.
In the developing country of India, women are left to do the work of maintain the household by performing menial tasks of subsistence farming and raising children. They are often the most exploited and least privileged person in the house (Park). Being a woman in India is a dangerous thing for several reasons. Economically it is more taxing to have a girl than it is to have a boy because if you have a girl then you have to pay a dowry to the man’s family who she is to be married to. In India all ways of telling the sex of a baby have been banned from use because many families will perform an abortion on the baby if it turns out that it is a girl. Also, if the mother can’t produce a boy, she is in great jeopardy of being killed. This is called a Dowry Death, and a 1997 report claimed that there are at least five thousand “Dowry Deaths” a year. This type of thinking is embedded in India’s culture, however, it has been reducing over the years and consequently, the development of the country has increased dramatically to the point where it now has the fourth best GDP in the world after being eleventh in 1990 (GDP - Million 1990). A custom in India is for the man to stay with his family with his wife while the women are married off and sent to live with the man that they