Gender Inequality And Its Impact on Society
What is Gender Inequality?
Gender inequality is a serious issue and has a great impact on our society. So, gender inequality is a situation in which sex and/or gender determine different rights and dignity for both men and women. Which are reflected in their unequal access to the enjoyment of rights, as well as the assumption of stereotyped social and cultural roles?
This clearly affects their status in all areas of life in society, whether public or private, in the family or workplace, economic or political life, in power and decision making, as well as in social gender relations. In virtually all societies, women are in an inferior position to men.
This issue has been repeating in our society for decades. The most crucial issue today would be inequality in the workplace. It is noticeable that gender inequality causes women to have a much more difficult time getting the same benefits, wages, and job opportunities as male workers even though both genders have an equal level of ability and capability.
Women and men should be treated fairly and equally in all matters. However, the world we are living right now is not an ideal world, which means men and women have not been treated in this way.
In fact, women have been discriminated against and treated unfairly. They are often denied in obtaining basic education, voting rights, and even the right to have their own property.
In January 2018, there’s a survey conducted by the non-profit Stop Street Harassment that shows that 38 percent of women have experienced sexual harassment in their workplace. This shows women are not well appreciated, and they are treated unequally.
Additionally, 81 percent of women reported that they have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their life, an assault, whether it is verbally or physically done. Women that usually work in a restaurant and rely on tips from their customers are twice as likely to be experiencing sexual harassment in their workplace.
Also, women that are lacking their legal immigration status or having a temporary work visa have a higher risk of being sexually harassed and assaulted.
Besides that, the race is one of the biggest major that plays a big part in determining how women are treated in their workplace. It was proven that a payment received by women may vary depending on their race and ethnicity.
Data collected by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that Asian or Pacific Islander women have the highest annual earning, followed by white women. Meanwhile, Hispanic and Native American women have the lowest pay.
Despite women are now more educated than men, and they occupied nearly half of the workplace, they are hardly ever get promoted even though they have performed a really good job in their workplace. Men are promoted far more often than women.
Also, women usually struggle in asking for higher pay as they often viewed as being greedy and desperate, which therefore makes them hesitate in asking for their worth in the workplace. This leads to unequal paying for women. Women are supposed to get what they deserve and according to all the hard work that they’ve dedicated to their work.
Actually, over the last 100 years or more, this trend has been largely reversed. Under the new European and North American laws, women now are enjoying the same social and political rights as men do.
We can’t deny the fact that in some sections of Europeans and Americans society, also in other countries, they still consider that women should stay at home to cook, clean the house and take good care of the family while men should go out to work.
Today’s young women are starting their careers better educated than males counterparts, and most women now get higher education compared to their mothers and grandmothers before.
They are able to bring those skills and apply them in their workplace. Through research, it shows that Americans don’t find significant differences between men and women in their ability to run a company. Various studies even indicate that when women get senior positions, the company turns out to be profitable. Additionally, there is not a problem with female achievement. Women have surpassed men in terms of education.
In conclusion, gender inequality refers to unfair rights between males and females based on the different gender roles, which leads to unequal treatment in life.
Based on all the discussion above, gender inequality is obviously an urgent and serious problem in the world. Despite the fact that volume is decreasing, it still exists and makes a lot of people suffer from all the consequences every single day.
Although there are actually many reasons leading to gender discrimination, which cannot be solved easily in society. Hopefully, with the power of education and progressive thoughts of people, there are also reasons to trust in the future gender inequality being stopped. In the end, everyone could live peacefully and happily in fairness no matter what gender they are.
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