Definition: Gender inequality is the social procedure by which men and women are not treated as equals. The treatment may arise from differences regarding biology, psychology, or cultural standards. Some of these differences are empirically-grounded while others appear to be socially built.
Gender inequality also marks non-binary people. Studies show the diverse lived experiences of genders across many spheres including education, life expectancy, personality, interests, family life, careers, and political associations. Gender inequality is experienced differently across dissimilar cultures.
Over the years, the world has gotten closer to reaching gender equality. There is improved representation of women in politics, more economic chances, and superior healthcare in many places of the world.
Causes of gender inequality:
- Uneven access to education
Around the world, women still have less availability when it comes to education than men. ¼ of young women between 15-24 year of age will not finish primary school. That group makes up 58% of the people not finishing that elementary education. Of all the illiterate people in the world, ⅔ are women. When girls are not educated on the same level as boys, it has an enormous value on their future and the types of chances they’ll get.
- Lack of employment equality
Only six countries in the world give women the identical legal work rights as men. In fact, most countries give women only ¾ the rights of men. Studies show that if occupation became a more even playing arena, it has a encouraging domino effect on other areas susceptible to gender inequality.
- Job segregation
One of the causes for gender inequality within employment is the partition of jobs. In most cultures, there’s an inherent belief that men are simply better prepared to handle certain jobs. Most of the time, those are the jobs that pay better. This judgement results in lower income for women. Women also take on the primary obligation for unpaid labour, as even as they participate in the paid workforce, they have extra work that never gets documented financially.
- Lack of legal protections
According to studies conducted by the World Bank, over 1 billion women don’t have legal safety against domestic sexual violence or domestic economic violence. Both have a substantial impact on women’s ability to thrive and live in freedom. In many countries, there’s also a shortage of legal defence against harassment in the office, at school, and in public. These places become unsafe and without protection, women repeatedly have to make choices that compromise and limit their goals.
- Lack of bodily autonomy
Many women around the world do not have power over their own bodies or when they become parents. Accessing birth control is normally very difficult. According to the World Health Organization, over two-hundred million women who don’t want to get pregnant are not using contraception. There are various reasons for this such as a lack of choices, restricted access, and cultural/religious obstruction. On a universal scale, about 40% of pregnancies are not planned and while 50% of them do end in abortion, 38% result in births. These mothers often become economically reliant on another person or the state, losing their freedom.
- Poor medical care
In addition to limited access to contraception, women overall get lower-quality medical care than men. This is connected to other gender inequality causes such as a lack of education and job prospects, which results in more women being in poverty. They are less likely to be able to have enough money for good healthcare. There’s also been less investigation into diseases that affect women more than men, such as autoimmune disorders and chronic pain situations. Many women also go through discrimination and dismissal from their doctors, widening the gender gap in healthcare quality.
- Lack of religious freedom
When religious freedom is taken into consideration, women suffer the most. According to the World Economic Forum, when extremist beliefs (such as ISIS) come into a community and limit religious freedom, gender inequality gets poorer. In a study conducted by Georgetown University and Brigham Young University, researchers were also able to attach religious intolerance with women’s ability to contribute in the economy. When there’s more religious freedom, an economy becomes more established thanks to women’s participation.
- Lack of political representation
Of all national parliaments at the beginning of 2019, only 24.3% of seats were occupied by women. As of June of 2019, 11 Heads of State were women. Despite development in this area over the years, women are still clearly underrepresented in government and the political procedure. This means that certain subjects that female politicians incline to bring up – such as parental leave and childcare, pensions, gender equality laws and gender-based violence – are often ignored.
- Racism
It would be difficult to talk about gender inequality without mentioning racism. It affects what jobs women of colour are able to get and how much they’re paid, as well as how they are observed by legal and healthcare systems. Gender inequality and racism have been linked for a long time. The pay gaps between white women and women of colour continues that heritage of discrimination and gives to gender inequality.
- Societal mind-sets
It’s less perceptible than some of the other causes on this list, but the general mind-set of a society has a noteworthy influence on gender inequality. How society controls the differences and value of men vs. women plays a showcasing role in every field, whether it’s employment or the legal system or healthcare. Opinions about gender run deep and even though development can be made through laws and structural changes, there’s often a pushback following times of main changes.
GENDER INEQUALITY IN INDIA
Gender inequality has been a social problem in India for centuries. That in many parts of India, the birth of a girl child is not welcomed is an identified statistic. It is an acknowledged fact too, that discrimination starts from even before the girl child is born and occasionally she is killed as a foetus, and if she manages to live, she is killed as an infant, which makes up the highly twisted child sex ratio where for every 1000 boys in India, there are only 908 girls. In such a situation, it is but obvious that for myriad reasons, many girls across the country are forced to drop out of school.
Patriarchal standards have marked women as lesser than men. A girl child is deliberated as a liability and is often not even permitted to see the light of the world. It is hard to visualize this state of matters in the 21st Century when women have shown to be resilient leaders in every field imaginable. From wrestling to commerce, the world has been revolutionised by extraordinary women leaders in domains that were until recently wholly controlled by men.
But in spite of such development, even today, the girl child is discriminated against in most Indian families. The birth of a baby boy is celebrated with great splendour and ardour, but the birth of a girl child is received with disappointment. The exercise of female foeticide through sex selective abortion endures to be practiced in spite of the Prenatal Diagnostic Technique Act of 1994. In India the child sex ratio is at the lowest it has ever been with just 914 girls for every 1000 boys (Census, 2011).
And this discrimination lingers in every facet. Be it education, well-being, protection or contribution, the girl child is always treated unfairly. Indian society still hasn’t awoken to the significance of empowering the women. The figures still describe a grim story of female foeticide, girl child discrimination and gender prejudice.
- 42% of married women in India were married as children (District Information System for Education (DISE))
- 1 in every 3 child brides in the world is a girl in India (UNICEF)
- India has more than 45 lakh girls under 15 years of age who are married with children. Out of these, 70% of the girls have 2 children (Census 2011)
The need of the hour is to make a change in the mind-set of the society and abolish the bigotries that hurt the future of the girl child. What is essential is a concentrated effort to uplift the society in eradicating this issue of gender inequality. It is high time that every child is treated alike and given every chance essential to grow to his/her full potential.
