Gender Inequality & Worldwide Status of Women

More people seem to agree with the ideas that women and men should have equal opportunities, and equal pay for equal work, than agree with some of the more radical ideas of the women's movement. Still, it is difficult to determine what comprises equal opportunity, as is apparent from many of the controversies surrounding the implementation of Title IX in college sports. Is gender equality primarily about equal numbers? What does gender equality look like, or has it been accomplished in this country or elsewhere in the world?

One of the first tasks is to define the concept of gender equality, and gender inequality, but this is not easy to do. Perhaps the best way to think about issues of gender equality and gender inequality is in terms of numbers, although these cannot give us detailed information about quality of experience. In its simplest form, gender inequality is gender discrimination that is enforced either by law or social practice that results in differential pay, promotions, jobs, education, and other forms of representation of men and women. In other words, if there is more scholarship money for men than women, that is gender inequality. If there are fewer women than men in law schools, that is gender inequality. If women obtain a smaller percentage of the Ph.D.'s, that is gender inequality. In other countries, if women have lower literacy rates and higher mortality rates, that is gender inequalit

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in which gender inequality is addressed in the United States, perhaps explaining some of the hostility toward the women's movement and affirmative action. In addressing the substantial discrimination and inequality in women's lives, the focus has been on improving women's situation relative to men's, while not significantly improving that of men. Thus, men tend to perceive their situation as static, or even slightly reversed, while women are making great gains. The Global Situation Yet the reality throughout the world is that women's indicators remain lower than those of men in almost all areas of life. They have lower literacy rates and rates of schooling, lower job occupancy rates, lower levels of pay and promotion, lower levels of professional achievement, and, in some instances, lower levels of health and higher levels of mortality, including female infanticide (Toward gender equality, 1995). According to the World Bank, the causes of gender inequality throughout the world are quite complex, linked both to systems and to intrahousehold decisionmaking. The result is that households tend to allocate fewer resources to females, resulting in lower levels of education and training, poor health and nutritional status, and limi

Category: Psychology - G