Severe gender inequality still exists throughout the
world despite the substantial national and international measures that have
been taken toward gender equality. The only four nations out of over 135 that
have achieved gender equality are Costa Rica, Sweden, Cuba, and Norway. Yemen
was the country that scored the lowest across all dimensions. Measures of gender equality include access
to basic education, health and life expectancy, equality of economic
opportunity, and political empowerment. And
although there has been progress made to change gender inequalities, much
gender discrimination still remains. Thus, total gender equality needs to be
made a global priority for human development and economic progress. But the
degree and cause of gender inequality varies around the world. Many noticeable
crimes against women include violence, femicide, and rape. Honor killing is also a crime in which a female member of a
family is killed for the perception of having brought dishonor to the family.
This has become a massive problem in Pakistan and the Muslim Middle East. In
Guatemala, women have been killed due to misogynistic violence, in Africa and
Yemen, women have been genitally mutilated, and in India, girls suffer from
female infanticide due to insufficient dowry payment. These actions are unlawful against women and
the whole of humanity. Sex-selective abortion is another major issue of gender
inequality as it fuels human trafficking, demographic imbalance, and sexual
exploitation. India and China both still
maintain the preference of male over female births. But nonetheless,
sex-selection is a violation of the right to life and has distorted the natural
sex ratios of 50/50 in countries in which it is practiced. But even though
national and international measures are at work, as China, Saudi Arabia, and
India have women's rights groups and are trying to make incentives for families
to have and keep their female children, these efforts are not sufficient to
minimize and eliminate gender inequality completely. From an economic
viewpoint, gender discrimination is a major impediment to growth as it prevents
countries from reaching their maximum productivity potential. Although women
constitute only 40% of the global work force, there are still many who are
unpaid family workers in the informal sector. Women are often paid less,
receive less promotion, receive less education, and have less job opportunity.
Thus, many countries experience loss of productivity that amounts to 25% due to
gender discrimination. Gender inequality also has severe individual and
societal losses for a nation. Only 14 of the 200 governments are headed by
females. An adjustment of this inequitable representation can drastically help
global gender inequality. To further promote gender equality however, there
needs to be an increase in education for
women, improvements in public health, more child care facilities, and availing
women equal voice in cultural, social, economic and political spheres of public
life. Without equal representation of women's voice in policy-making and
institutions, decisions are often more advantageous for men. But gender
discrimination is rooted in history, tradition and culture and brings down
women's sense of worth and dignity. The remedy would take the collaboration of all
nations in order to shift the attitude and mindset of the population in favor
of gender equality.
Gender inequality is something that is such a vast
problem in many countries around the world yet at the same time something that
seems to be so embedded within societies that it is just another accepted part
of everyday life, or "just the way things are." But this article on
world gender inequality shows how this is a major social issue that needs to be
addressed as it affects many aspects of life for all. Within most societies
today, the social stratification of women based on gender still strongly
exists. Women such as in the mentioned countries of China and India are not
valued and are given less rewards than men. Women often receive less power,
prestige, wealth, and privilege than men. They are not given the same
opportunities to succeed in life. The way that people are socialized to view
and treat women is often a major issue in how women are themselves treated. As
many societies are socialized to view women as unnecessary and weak, even to
the point of killing them, this only creates a vicious cycle of the inequality
of women. Gender inequality often being embedded in the culture, tradition, and
history of a society, makes gender discrimination seem only that much more
acceptable and not a social issue that needs to be addressed. Women are
considered to have their specific gender roles and men considered to have their
own gender roles. But with men being the "providers" and caretakers
of most families, they are usually considered to have a more valuable role.
Therefore, men are often given the opportunity to receive an education over
women as well, giving women even more of
a disadvantage. Within the realm of gender, women are definitely the ones who
lack power within the stratified social order. But as gender, like race, is a
social construct made by societies themselves, then why must so much emphasis
be put on it? As in the cases of China, India, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Guatemala,
and Pakistan, the violence, honor killing, infanticide, rape, and genital mutilation
that these women suffer from and endure is not socially just at all and it can
be hard to wrap one's mind around as to why these things would be considered as
acceptable. If gender inequality actually causes more problems such as impeding
economic growth and creating severe individual and societal losses for a
nation, then shouldn't efforts be made to give women more equality? Thus,
drastic changes would definitely need to take place in order to change people's
mindsets on gender. In order to grant women gender equality, more nations are
going to need to open up and use their sociological imaginations to see this
problem as a serious social issue and not as a mere personal problem and then,
mobilize for action in order to actually change the reality of it. Women are
going to need an equal voice and representation within society in order to
really gain the social equality that they deserve.
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