Gender Inequality Essay Example for Free

Gender Inequality Essay I have chosen to make my presentation about inequalities between genders after having seen a video last week . I don’t know if someone has seen the speech of Emma Watson at the United Nation about that but if you don’t , the actress gave an impassioned speech on feminism and gender at the U.N. headquarters in New York this weekend to launch the â€Å"HeForShe† campaign which aims to galvanize one billion men and boys as advocates for ending the inequalities that women and girls face globally. â€Å"I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive. Why is the word such an uncomfortable one? I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.† No society treats its women as well as its men. Thats the conclusion from the United Nations Development Programme, as written in its 1997 Human Development Report. Almost 50 years earlier, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly had adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which specified that everyone, regardless of sex, was entitled to the same rights and freedoms. The 1997 Human Development Report, as well as every Human Development Report that followed, has highlighted that each country falls short of achieving that goal.. In this presentation, well take a trip around the world to examine 10 examples of gender inequality 10: Professional Obstacles Women fought for decades to take their place in the workplace alongside men, but that fight isnt over yet. According to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Census, women earn just 77 percent of what men earn for the same amount of work]. In addition to this gender wage gap, women often face a glass ceiling when it comes to promotions, which is evident when you survey the lack of women in leadership positions at major companies. Women who have  children often find themselves penalized for taking time off; if theyre not dismissed, they may face discrimination and outdated ideas of what a woman can accomplish if shes pregnant or a mother.. 9: Limited Mobility Saudi Arabia provides the most extreme example of limited mobility for women: In that country, women are not allowed to drive a car or ride a bicycle on public roads. The strict Islamic law in the country prohibits women from leaving the home without a mans permission, and if they do leave the home, they cant drive a car . While Saudi Arabia is the only country that prohibits women from driving a car, other countries restrict womens overseas travels by limiting their access to passports, and even women in developed countries may complain of limited mobility. While these women may have the legal right to drive cars and ride planes, they may elect not to go out by themselves at night due to the threat of rape or attack. 8: Violence In 2008, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported that one in every three women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime .In both the developed and the developing world, violence against women in the form of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse or spousal killing is such routine behavior that it rarely even makes the news anymore. In conflict zones, rape of women and children is increasingly used as a weapon of war 7: Feticide and Infanticide Youll often hear expectant parents say that they dont care if they have a boy or a girl, as long as the baby is healthy. In some countries, such as China and India, a male child is more valuable than a female child, and this gender bias causes parents to care very much if they have a boy or a girl. Thanks to advances in genetic testing, parents can find out if theyre having a boy or a girl, and they may elect to end a pregnancy that would yield a female child Chinas one child policy may have led to many sex-selective abortions. 6. Restricted Land Ownership In some countries, such as Chile and Lesotho, women lack the right to own  land. All deeds must include the name of a man, be it the womans husband or father. If one of those men were to die, the woman has no legal claim to land that she may have lived on or worked all her life. And some women remain in abusive marriages so that they wont lose a place to live. Such restricted rights can be particularly frustrating in rural areas where agriculture is dominant. 5: Feminization of Poverty Women in some countries have no right to own the land on which they live or work. Not only can such a state trap women in abusive marriages, it also contributes to a phenomenon that economists have deemed the feminization of poverty. More than 1.5 billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day, and the majority of those people are women . The United Nations often cites the statistic that women do two-thirds of the worlds work, receive 10 percent of the worlds income and own 1 percent of the means of production Many female entrepreneurs have been foiled and left to dwell in poverty because of restricted access to basic legal rights. 4: Access to Health Care In many countries, a pregnant woman in labor can head to any hospital, confident that she will receive assistance in delivery. That seems like a luxury to women in developing countries, however. According to the World Health Organization, one woman dies in childbirth every minute of every day. Thats more than 500,000 deaths every year, many of which could have been prevented if the woman had been allowed to leave her home to receive treatment, or if shed had a skilled attendant by her side. Childbirth is but one example of how women receive unequal access to health care services. 3: Freedom to Marry and Divorce In the United States, love (and the lack of it) is a subject for romantic comedies and conversation over cocktails. In other countries, love may not enter the discussion at all when it comes to marriage. In many countries, young girls are forced to marry men two or three times their age. According to UNICEF, more than one-third of women aged 20 to 24 were married before they turned 18, which is considered the minimum legal age of marriage in most countries When a woman wants out of a loveless marriage, her options are limited in many countries. In some places, courts automatically grant custody of children to the husband, and women often have no chance of receiving any measure of financial support. In other places, such as Egypt, women dont even have access to a court. While men are allowed a divorce after an oral renunciation registered with the court, women face years of obstacles to get in front of a judge. For this reason, many women around the world are trapped in abusive marriages. 1: Education Attainment Of the children that arent in school right now, the majority of them are girls.]. When it comes to education, girls worldwide get the short end of the stick. Girls may be kept out of school to help with household chores, they may be pulled from school if their father deems its time for them to marry, or there may only be enough money to educate one child from the family and the boy assumes the responsibility. This gap in educational attainment becomes particularly maddening when you consider the numerous studies that have been done which show that educating girls is a key factor in eliminating poverty and aiding development. Girls who complete school are less likely to marry young, more likely to have smaller families and exhibit better health outcomes in relation to maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS. These women also go on to earn higher salaries, which they then invest in their own families, thus ensuring that future generations of girls get to go on to school. Indeed, its addressin g the inequalities in education that may solve many of the other problems on this list. 2: Political Participation Analysts often posit that many of the issues on this list could be solved if women had higher levels of political participation. Despite making up half the global population, women hold only 15.6 percent of elected parliamentary seats in the world. Theyre missing from all levels of government local, regional and national. Why is it important that women take part in politics? A study that examined women in leadership in Bolivia, Cameroon and Malaysia found that when women could take part in shaping spending priorities, they were more likely to invest in family and community resources, health, education and the eradication of poverty than the men, who were more likely to invest in the military [source: Some countries have experimented with quoBy No society treats its women as well as its men. Thats the conclusion from the United Nations Development Programme, as written in its 1997 Human Development Report [source: UNDP]. Almost 50 years earlier, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly had adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which specified that everyone, regardless of sex, was entitled to the same rights and freedoms. The 1997 Human Development Report, as well as every Human Development Report that followed, has highlighted that each country falls short of achieving that goal. The severity of the shortfall varies by country; Nordic countries such as Sweden, Norway and Iceland, for example, are routinely hailed as having the smallest gender gaps. In the developing world, however, women face unfairness that can be hard to fathom. In this article, well take a trip around the world to examine 10 examples of gender inequality.