Globally

Madison Weston

Maddieweston@mycwi.cc

English 102-011W

Global Rough Draft

April 22, 2013

Promoting Gender Equality & Women empowerment

            “Depressingly many traditions have portrayed women as less important then men, less deserving of basic life support, or of fundamental rights that are strongly correlated with the quality of life. (Nussbaum and Glover).” On the global level, women are not treated as equal to men; and in order to ensure our economy’s health and growth we need be able to achieve gender equality and empower women. Women make up a majority of the world’s population, and according to Nussbaum and Glover there is no country in the world where a women’s quality of life is equal to that of a mans.

            This is globally recognized issue, which effects economic growth and health, and therefore is the reason it became a Millennium Developmental Goal (MDG). There are eight MDG’s currently in focus to create a better world and end poverty by 2015. According to the United Nations web page, all countries and developing institutions have agreed to work on these goals. One of these goals is to promote gender equality and empower women, everyone is aware of the inequalities towards women, and needs to begin empowering them.

 Today, women are accustomed to living the life based from traditions and stereotypes. As a women member of a caste in India, women are not allowed to work out side of their homes (Nussbaum and Glover). Women in this caste, even if they are in need of food or means of survival must remain home. Commonly resulting in death or to face brutal assaults from family members for leaving their homes (Nussbaum and Glover).  This tradition or similar customs is not uncommon, not only in India but in other countries across the globe.

Other inequalities that are active across the globe include female to male workers employed in our work force. According to Women Culture and Development, the employment participation rates of women are only fifty percent of men’s (Nussbaum and Glover). In South Asia the participation rates are only twenty-nine percent of men’s, and in Arab states it is only sixteen percent (Nussbaum and Glover). Not only are there inequalities in employment participation, for women who are employed, they deal with other inequalities compared to men. They are forced to dealing with sexual discrimination, and sexual harassment. Women are also offered significant wage differences, low wages with little or no respect and go with several hours of unpaid housework. According to the authors Nussbaum and Glover of Women Culture and Development, “If women’s unpaid housework were counted as productive output in national income accounts, global output would increase by twenty to thirty percent (Nussbaum and Glover).”

Gender inequalities are not only present in traditions, and in our work force but also in education. On a global level, women are less likely to become literate (Nussbaum and Glover). In south Asia literacy rates of women are fifty percent of males, in Nepal thirty five percent, and in Afghanistan it is thirty two percent compare to males (Nussbaum and Glover). According to the statistics two-thirds of the world’s illiterate population is made up of women.

There are several examples around the world of gender inequalities; we must recognize them so we can make a change. According to Molly Edmonds from Discovery an example is that globally there is education attainment, which leads to all the illiterate women (Edmonds 2013). Also through out the world, we don’t have very many women holding government chairs in office (Edmonds 2013). Lastly a few other examples of inequalities, we need to work on women being free to marry and divorce as they choose, access to health care, and feminization of poverty (Edmonds 2013). These are just a few examples of gender inequalities that we must worked on globally, and beyond these examples there are so many more.

The millennium developmental goals are our way to try and regain attention and focus to what we as a world struggle with. The goals are organized, and are to be achieved around the world. By uniting together we can make a change and a difference. We need to continue educating countries the importance of promoting equality and empowerment for women. The importance of survival, if we cannot work together and be treated equal in every aspect of life we will not survive. Our stereotypes and fears of another will take over while hopes for peace is gone. This may eventually lead to an economy down fall. 

According the MDG website a graph of trends and overviews of progress shows we are making some progress (Uniosil 2013). This graph shows us which countries are making progress and which countries have not yet started. According to this graph we see that all of Asia has made the most progress. We can also identify that Europe and northern Africa and Latin America have made progress towards reaching goals including promoting gender equality and women empowerment (Uniosil 2013). On this graph it also shows which countries have not yet started or is not expected to meet targets. We see countries such as Sub-Saharan Africa, which does not have as much progress and also Oceania has less progress. The untied states is not included on this graph, hopefully we can follow example and continue working towards a better world.

Globally we need to take a moral stand, standing against gender discrimination, and inequalities. We need to recognize and empower our women, and every woman; we must be a role model for future generations and fight against gender stereotypes. In order to achieve and ensure economic growth and health, we have to achieve gender equality, we must take action and protect women’s’ quality of life as well as men. Women make up the majority of the worlds population and with out women our population would no longer be. After all, women are our mothers, and mothers of our future children.

References

Dollar, David, and Roberta Gatti. "POLICY RESEARCH REPORT ON GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT." Gender Inequality, Income, and Growth: Are Good Times Good for Women?. Working Paper Series.No. 1 (1999): 1-40. Web. 22 Apr. 2013. <http://darp.lse.ac.uk/frankweb/courses/EC501/DG.pdf>.

Edmonds, M. (2013). 10 examples of gender inequalities around the world. Retrieved from http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/examples-gender-inequality-around-world.htm

Nussbaum, Martha, and Jonathan Glover. Women, Culture, and Development: A study of human capabilities. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. eBook.

Uniosil. (2013). Millennium development goals overview trends towards meeting targets. Retrieved from http://uniosil.org/wp-