Ask the Constitution → Your rights, by who you are
The Constitution names women specifically in more places than most people expect, from equal pay to panchayat seats to the newest amendment reserving a third of the Lok Sabha. Here is where the document touches your life, in its own words.
Descriptive, not legal advice · text as amended through the 106th Amendment (2023)
Equality before the law, for every person. This is the foundation every other protection builds on.
The state cannot discriminate against you on grounds of sex. Clause (3) goes further: the state may make special provisions for women and children, which is the constitutional basis for laws that protect and benefit women specifically.
Equal opportunity in government jobs. Sex is a prohibited ground of discrimination in public employment.
Life and personal liberty. The Supreme Court has read dignity, autonomy, and privacy into this article, and most landmark women's rights judgments stand on it.
Trafficking in human beings and forced labour are prohibited outright. This is a fundamental right you can enforce in court.
The state must direct its policy toward equal pay for equal work for men and women, and toward protecting workers from abuse. A Directive Principle: a duty on the state, not enforceable in court.
The state must make provision for just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief. The constitutional root of maternity benefit law, also a Directive Principle.
Clause (e) makes it every citizen's duty to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women. A duty, written into the document itself.
At least one third of all panchayat seats, and of chairperson posts, are reserved for women. Lakhs of women head village councils because of this article.
One third of Lok Sabha seats reserved for women, added by the 106th Amendment in 2023.
The same one-third reservation in every state Legislative Assembly.
The catch: the reservation takes effect only after a delimitation based on the first census taken after 2023. It has not applied to an election yet.