GENDER INQUALITY- HISTORY, PROGG

Nature has divided human race between men and women, but their status and role in society are
determined by our culture.
Sex vs. Gender
Sex: its scope is limited to the biological differences such as reproductive functions and
physiological differences.
Gender: refers to cultural ideas that construct images and expectations of both females and
males.
In social sciences and literary criticism the term Gender is used to indicate the differences in
social status of man and woman, particularly to refer to the fact that are places in a lower status
in relations to their intrinsic worth.
Masculinity, for example, typically includes aggressiveness, logical outlook, control of emotional
expression, and attitude of dominance, while femininity is associated with peacefulness,
intuitiveness, emotional expressiveness, and submissiveness.
"No society treats its women as well as its men." That's 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. 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.
Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender.
It arises from differences in socially constructed gender roles as well as biologically through
chromosomes, brain structure, and hormonal differences.
Gender inequality stems from distinctions, whether empirically grounded or socially constructed.
1: Education Attainment:
Of the children that aren't in school right now, the majority of them are girls. Women make up
more than two-thirds of the world's illiterate adults, because
o Girls may be kept out of school to help with household chores
o they may be pulled from school if their father deems it's time for them to marry
o there may only be enough money to educate one child from the family -- and the boy
assumes the responsibility.
Importanceof Girl Education.
Girls who complete school are
o less likely to marry young,
o more likely to have smaller families and
o Exhibit better health outcomes in relation to maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS.
o 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.
2: Political Participation
Despite making up half the global population, women hold only 15.6 percent of elected
parliamentary seats in the world.They're missing from all levels of government -- local, regional
and national.
Some countries have experimented with quota systems to increase female participation, though
these systems are often criticized for getting women involved simply because they are women, as
opposed to their qualifications.
3: Freedom to Marry and Divorce
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 . Child brides give
birth at early ages, which increases the chance of complications in childbirth and the risk of
contracting HIV/AIDS.
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.
4: Access to Health Care
According to the World Health Organization, one woman dies in childbirth every minute of
every day. That's 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 she'd had
a skilled attendant by her side. Childbirth is but one example of how women receive unequal
access to health care services.
5: 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 world's work, receive 10 percent of the world's income and own 1 percent of the means of
production.
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 woman's 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. Often,
widows are left homeless because the deceased man's family will throw them out of their homes.
And some women remain in abusive marriages so that they won't lose a place to live. Such
restricted rights can be particularly frustrating in rural areas where agriculture is dominant.
Women may spend their entire lives cultivating and harvesting foodstuffs for no pay, only to
lack a safety net when the father or husband leaves or dies.
7: Feticide and Infanticide
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 they're having a boy or a girl, and they may
elect to end a pregnancy that would yield a female child. And if the parents don't receive advance
notice, they may kill the child after its birth. As a result, the gender ratio in some countries is
skewed; in India, for example, there were 927 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001 .The female fetuses
and infants who are killed are sometimes referred to as the world's "missing women."
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. In other countries, marital rape is condoned, and some countries have laws that
require a certain number of male witnesses to testify before a court will acknowledge that a rape
has occurred. Even in developed countries, women are often blamed and questioned about
actions if they become the victims of rape or physical abuse, while their attackers may not face
such questioning. Because of the stigma of reporting any form of abuse, we may never know the
true extent of this problem.
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 man's permission, and if they do
leave the home, they can't drive a car. Doing so would require removal of their veils, which is
forbidden, and it could potentially bring them in contact with strange men, another forbidden
practice.
While Saudi Arabia is the only country that prohibits women from driving a car, other countries
restrict women's 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.
10: Professional Obstacles
Women fought for decades to take their place in the workplace alongside men, but that fight
isn't 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 they're not dismissed, they may
face discrimination and outdated ideas of what a woman can accomplish if she's pregnant or a
mother. And jobs that are considered traditional women's work, such as nursing and teaching,
are often some of the lowest-paying fields.
As women entered the workforce in larger numbers since the 1960s, occupations have
become segregated based on the amount femininity or masculinity presupposed to be
associated with each occupation.
Census data suggests that while some occupations have become more gender integrated
(mail carriers, bartenders, bus drivers, and real estate agents), occupations including
teachers, nurses, secretaries, and librarians have become female-dominated while
occupations including architects, electrical engineers, and airplane pilots remain
predominately male in composition.
Based on the census data, women occupy the service sector jobs at higher rates than men.
Womens overrepresentation in service sector jobs, as opposed to jobs that require
managerial work acts as a reinforcement of women and men into traditional gender roles
that causes gender inequality.
History of Gender Inequality
Ancient India

According to scholars, women in ancient India enjoyed equal status with men in all aspects of
life.Works by ancient Indian grammarians such as Patanjali and Katyayana suggest that women
were educated in the early Vedic period.
Rigvedic verses suggest that women married at a mature age and were probably free to select
their own husbands. Scriptures such as the Rig Veda and Upanishads mention several women
sages and seers, notably Gargi and Maitreyi.
Medieval period

Indian women's position in society further deteriorated during the medieval period, when child
marriages and a ban on remarriage by widows became part of social life in some communities
in India. The Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent brought purdah to Indian society.
Among the Rajputs of Rajasthan, the Jauhar was practised. In some parts of India, some of
Devadasis were sexually exploited. Polygamy was practised among Hindu Kshatriya rulers for
some political reasons
In spite of these conditions, women often became prominent in the fields of politics, literature,
education and religion. Razia Sultana became the only woman monarch to have ever ruled
Delhi. The Gond queen Durgavati ruled for fifteen years before losing her life in a battle with
Mughal emperor Akbar's general Asaf Khan in 1564. Chand Bibi defended Ahmednagar against
the powerful Mughal forces of Akbar in the 1590s. Jehangir's wife NurJehan effectively wielded
imperial power, and was recognized as the real power behind the Mughal throne. The Mughal
princesses Jahanara and Zebunnissa were well-known poets, and also influenced the ruling
powers. Shivaji's mother, Jijabai, was queen regent because of her ability as a warrior and an
administrator. In South India, many women administered villages, towns, and divisions, and
ushered in new social and religious institutions
The Bhakti movements tried to restore women's status and questioned certain forms of
oppression. Mirabai , a female saint-poet, was one of the most important Bhakti movement
figures. Other female saint-poets from this period included Akka Mahadevi, Rami Janabai and
Lal Ded.
Immediately following the Bhakti movements, Guru Nanak, the first Guru of Sikhs, preached
equality between men and women. He advocated that women be allowed to lead religious
assemblies; to lead congregational hymn singing called Kirtan or Bhajan; to become members of
religious management committees; to lead armies on the battlefield; to have equality in
marriage, and to have equality in Amrit (Baptism).
British rule

European scholars observed in the 19th century that Hindu women are "naturally chaste" and
"more virtuous" than other women.

During the British Raj, many reformers such as Ram Mohan
Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and JyotiraoPhule fought for the betterment of women. Peary
Charan Sarkar, a former student of Hindu College, Calcutta and a member of "Young Bengal", set up
the first free school for girls in India in 1847 in Barasat, a suburb of Calcutta
Independent India
Women in India now participate fully in areas such as education, sports, politics, media, art and
culture, service sectors, science and technology, etc.
The Constitution of India guarantees to all Indian women equality (Article 14), no
discrimination by the State (Article 15(1)), equality of opportunity (Article 16), and equal pay
for equal work (Article 39(d)). In addition, it allows special provisions to be made by the State
in favour of women and children (Article 15(3)), renounces practices derogatory to the dignity
of women (Article 51(A) (e)), and also allows for provisions to be made by the State for
securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief. (Article 42)
Feminist activism in India gained momentum in the late 1970s. One of the first national-level
issues that brought women's groups together was the Mathura rape case. The acquittal of
policemen accused of raping a young girl Mathura in a police station led to country-wide
protests in 1979-1980.
Gender equality in India among worst in world: UN
When India's Human Development Index is adjusted for gender inequality, it becomes south
Asia's worst performing country after Afghanistan, new numbers in the UNDP's Human
Development Report 2013 show. Pakistan ,Nepal and Bangladesh, which are poorer than India
and have lower HDIs, all do comparatively better than India when it comes to gender equality.
The new UNDP report ranks India 136th out of 186 countries, five ranks below post-war Iraq,
on the HDI. The HDI is a composite indicator composed of three equally weighted measures for
education, health and income.


Name: Ajaya Kumar Sethi
Roll No: 063
Section: 4
Sources:
Books Links Any other
Political Theory
by O P Gauba
Wikipedia