Essay on Gender Inequality

Gender Inequality as a threat to half the Humanity

        Nowadays, women are payed more than 15% less than men (WBI, 2016), 62 million girls are denied an education all over the world (Makers, 2018), women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria (Makers, 2018) and the list goes on and on.

So why? Why do politicians, Government continue saying the world is going well? How could the world possibly go well while 49.6% of the population is persecuted, at permanent risk of rape, victim of human trafficking, child marriage, not beneficing of an education and payed less for the exact same work?

Well, imagine that, on an exoplanet, one can be born with rolled ears and 6 toes or with straight ears and 7 toes. Nevertheless, if one is born with straight ears and 7 toes, it is considered being less valuable, less intelligent and weaker! At this point you may ask why? It’s so logic! One has straight ears and 7 toes; how could it be equal to the other half of the population? Pretty ironic, isn’t it? And so is the situation in our own world, where humans are divided by their sexual organs. And by this simple fact, men are perceived of being stronger, more straight-forward, braver, to sum up, more capable, of anything. Whilst women are judged of being too emotional and fragile, thus not worthy of equality with the other half of the human population…

In this essay, I will intent to, in a first part describe what is happening on a social level and on an individual and in a second part, I will try to find solutions to the problem, thanks to medias, education and possibly affirmative action.

Firstly, some areas of the world are more concerned about gender inequality (India, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sub-Saharan Africa…) because women suffer of child marriage: One third of girls in the developing world are married before the age of 18 and 1 in 9 are married before the age of 15 (ICRW, 2018) and genital mutilation: more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been mutilated in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated (WHO, 2018).,

Additionally, even though one may thing gender inequality is not an issue in developed countries such as Norway for instance, it is still not to take for granted. Indeed, In the first four months of 2016, over 500 rapes were reported  (Wage, 2016), which is the highest number since 2002. In addition, women stereotypes are omnipresent, even in developed countries. Indeed, on advertisements, even today, women are represented as being at the mercy of men’s desires, very good at cooking, at tidying the house and their body is also used a lot to sell products.

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In a second part, we could try to find solutions. Firstly, to my mind, education may be one of the most effective one. Indeed, it is constituting the main institution that teaches us the norms, dogmas and ideas we should remember and follow. Hence, by teaching that men and women should be equal in rights because they both work, learn, know, study as efficiently. Moreover, medias should stop conveying gender stereotypes in ads, should put more powerful women in movies, for that people can understand that women and men should be treated by the same way. Finally, one may discuss the fact that affirmative action is a solution. Nevertheless, it is a form of discrimination so should we solve discrimination by discrimination?

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