Women’s right: Gender inequality is a social concern

Despite numerous laws enacted to combat the vice, gender inequality persists to high levels throughout the globe.

Statistics show that only Costa Rica, Cuba, Costa Rica, Norway, and Sweden have achieved global female equality. Yemen, on the other side, comes in last overall for women's rights. Political empowerment, opening up basic education to girls, good maternal health practices, life expectancy, and equitable access to economic opportunities are all steps in the direction of gender equality. Excellent progress has been made toward achieving gender equity, but the social practice of gender segregation persists. Regarding achieving progress towards economic and human development, gender equality needs to be made a global priority.

Causes and the magnitude of sex inequality vary from one country to another.

Evident crimes against women involve rape, femicide, and violence. Besides, honor killing is one such crime where a woman or a female member of a family is killed with the view that she brought shame to the household. It is a massive issue in some countries like in the Middle East and Pakistan. For instance, two sisters 19 and 21 years of age were murder by their brother with the approval of the father in 2009 in Saudi Arabia on account of bringing dishonor to their family (Malhotra et al., 71). Other reports of discrimination include female genital mutilation in Africa and Yemen, bridal burning in India because of inadequate dowry, etc. These acts are not only illegal to women but the entire human race. On an economic perspective, gender discrimination is a serious impediment to progress as it hinders countries from attaining maximum levels of productivity. It is factual that women constitute 40% of the total global labor force where many others work in the informal and family settings without wages (Malhotra et al., 71). Further, those who work in formal employment earn much lower wages than their male counterparts irrespective of possessing same skills and competence. Also, their ranks and promotions are restricted to lower or middle-level staff. Besides, women are sent to early retirement or retrenched with lame excuses, run small subsistence firms, have limited educational opportunities than men. Because of such restrictions, many nations encounter low productivity that sums up to 25 percent because of gender imbalances. Research reveals that the GDP of Japan will rise by 15% if sex discrimination in employment is adjusted accordingly (Malhotra et al., 72). However, Confucianism in Japan has ensured male dominance and abuse of women without regard thus holding the country’s growth potential back.

Apart from an economic viewpoint, there is a lot of societal and national losses because of gender imbalances.

All over the world, the population of women is slightly higher than 50%, but only 14 out of 200 countries are headed by a female head of state (Malhotra et al., 73). If there is a small adjustment to this disparity, there will be a tremendous positive impact towards realizing gender balance. The manifestations of gender inequality are rooted in culture, tradition, and history. Sexual prejudice incapacitates women and severely affect their worth, psychology, and dignity.

Developing a solution

The remedy to gender bias lies with our cultural and social systems. The international community, national institutions, local communities to traditional values, communication, leadership, cultural beliefs, etc. hold the keys to gender balance. To change attitudes and mentalities of the society to foster equality between the sexes, respect for sisters, daughters, and mothers who are equal stakeholders in social settings is inevitable (Grown et al., 541). The fundamental steps towards achieving gender balance are as follows:

First, the society must give girls and women a voice.

The biggest challenge to achieving gender balance has been keeping women out of important decision-making forums at the global and national fronts. When an agency formulates policies without taking into consideration the needs of women, the society is poised to fail (Grown et al., 541). Consultation from grassroots to national and international levels need to be made especially for women when designing key policies affecting the community.

Secondly, women need freedom to use important technology.

In some countries like India, women are not allowed to utilize simple technologies like mobile phones and computers in their operations because of infrastructural and economic constraints. Access to technology for the growth and development of the welfare of women without which, women and girls cannot be exposed to equal resources and opportunities as men (Grown et al., 542).

Thirdly, sexual harassment and child marriages must be stopped.

In some countries like Bangladesh, the biggest hindrance to girl-child education is early marriages. According to research, around 50% of girls in Bangladesh are married before they reach their 18th birthday while around 30 percent in the age bracket of 15-19 have one kid (Grown et al., 542). For girls to be a success in educational matters, child marriages must end in the society. Besides, the problem of sexual assault and violence need to be addressed with the seriousness it requires.

Fourthly, established women need to fight for influential positions in society.

The best way to combat structural limitations is to get women participate in decision-making chambers like the national, regional and global legislatures as empowered agents of transformation. Besides, the society needs to emphasize the importance of work done by women. The relevant stakeholders need to champion for equal pay for equal duties. Economic motivations, legislations, and pledges like UN’s women empowerment principles need to be adapted and applied in all spheres of the society (Grown et al., 543).

In conclusion, women are important stakeholders in all fields of life.

They contribute significantly to the growth and development of the community and subsequently the development of the society. Their importance cannot any longer be ignored in the 21st century. Opportunities need to be advanced to women through level playing grounds in all aspects of the economy to realize their potential and the society as a whole.

Works cited

Grown, Caren, Geeta Rao Gupta, and Rohini Pande. "Taking action to improve women's health through gender equality and women's empowerment." The Lancet 365.9458 (2005): 541.

Malhotra, Anju, and Sidney Ruth Schuler. "Women’s empowerment as a variable in international development." Measuring empowerment: Cross-disciplinary perspectives (2005): 71-88.