Challenge and Change in Society
Gender Equality
There has been a variety of approaches to gender equality and schooling in Canada for several years. This has resulted in coming up with organizations that are sufficiently playing the role of ensuring that gender imbalance is regulated between men and women of Canada. Through feminine research a significant effect has been realized in education policy makers. Many women however, have been found to get involved in education as their profession. Equality of gender in education has been a struggle since 1960 where education was identified as a main central policy to be embraced by both men and women.
It has not only been education and schooling that gender equality has raised a concern in Canada but also in various fields that entails legislation, employment and political empowerment. This has seen many organizations to come into place to support women in ensuring gender equality. For instance, Status of Women Canada (SWC) is a government organization that has come in line with federal agencies, working together in ensuring that gender equality is a reality in Canada. As an encouraging outcome, Canadian women have so far been allowed to enjoy their political rights just as men. They have their rights to vote and stand for election. But this doesn’t mean that there no longer exist gender disparities in Canada.
Just like many countries have been for the longest time victims of gender inequality, Canada has encountered huge disparities and imbalances in the sharing of national resources between its men and women. A quick look at the ratio of men to women holding public or managerial positions in state corporations reveals that women, though equally qualified just like their male counterparts, have been left behind when it comes to such appointments.
It is with this understanding that Status of Women Canada (SWC) a federal agency was formed about thirty years ago. This agency was formed to promote gender equality and ensure that women participated fully in social, cultural, economic and even political life in the country. The mandate of this state agency is to analyze gender based legislation, policies and programs that touch on the welfare of women empowerment. The Canadian Radio- television and telecommunications Commission (CRTC) also developed its initial policy on equitable gender portrayal in on-air advertising and programs back in 1992 (Martha,2009). Although there is substantial industry self regulation when it comes to gender, all private broadcasters in Canada have to strictly adhere to the sex role portrayal code of television and radio programming that is usually administered by the Canadian broadcast standards council.
Even with all these interventions, there has been a wider awareness of both gaps and progress in an effort to ensure equality of gender. In the year 2005 for instance, there was only one woman for every five male members of parliament. Further, the average female graduate earns about 71 % of what a male graduate earns and to make matters even worse, women are six times more likely to be harassed sexually than their male counterparts (Sydie, 2009).
Hypothesis
“If gender equality ignorance still exists in Canadian society, morality of the law will soon be depleted and the society may recede to Stone Age though roles and responsibilities.”
Intensive research has been done about gender equality in Canada and the results have shown how much women are still less advanced in political realm as compared to other countries. It is a wonder over the fact that the number of educated women in Canada outweighs that of men, (Eddy and Ronald, 2004), but still men take the lead in the administration. Fewer women are involved in government errands and the better part of it is left for men.
The research showed still that there are more Canadian women in the labor market just like men but equality in pay doesn’t exist at all. There only exists a larger wage gap between men and women in their workplaces. Women’s wages are really affected because many of them are involved in part-time jobs. Even though women in Canada who have attained education in secondary schools and university level outnumber men, they still face a glass ceiling in labor market and higher tertiary level. Unfair representation of women in the field of education is manifested as not as many of them as men are involved in technical courses like engineering, doctorates and even computer science.
As hope assurance for women, there are many Canadian organizations that work on promoting gender equality. Women have so far achieved the right to vote and even stand for election in Canada. As a matter of fact, many women representatives are already in the parliament but if there number will not be the as that of men, then the difference between now and the ancient of the days would be very minimal. Our society would live as if we are still in the Stone Age era where morality of the law was minimally observed.
Methodology
In the event of trying to ascertain the truth behind the above hypothesis, there was need to carry out a random interview. The target was also random and included many men and women in our Canadian society. There were set of questionnaires that were prepared earlier to serve this purpose. This was a time consuming event that involved convincing the people to be interviewed first. It also involved oral interviews to the people found in the target areas described bellow.
The target area was also keenly identified and for better results, areas that women and men that could be found carrying out different errands were reached. These included homesteads, estates, villages, market areas and even office working areas. Homesteads and estates were chosen because women and men who might have not gone to work could have been there and their reasons were what we needed. The village was targeted also to affirm the different kinds of responsibilities men and women undertook. A market area was choice because this is a place that contains all categories of people undertaking jobs of diverse nature.
The interviews were also presented not only to the aged people but also to the very young ones to know their diverse understanding about gender roles. This was a very effective way of coming out with unbiased results. School environment was inclusive in target areas and as many students as possible were interviewed. This was to see if the students had adequately about gender equality in theory and to know if they applied it in their scopes of life. The questionnaires contained much of the research topic trying to analyze the hypothesis.
Interview Questions
1. What does gender equality mean to you?
This question is for general understanding about equality of gender, what the research topic is all about.
2. Do you think that there are specific roles for men that women cannot attempt? If so, which one do they include?
This is to know whether ignorance of gender equality still exists.
3. Are there roles that are meant for women alone? Can you name a few of them?
This is to see how vast we are knowledgeable about different gender sensitive roles.
4. Are women capable of doing what men do?
5. Do you think there are men who still beat there wives?
This will show how in the past some of the people in the society still live if at all there exist such like people.
6. Why do you think men play many roles in government than women?
This will show how male chauvinism still exists even in the government.
7. Is there any way of engaging many women to play these similar roles?
It will be seen whether they are able to embrace modernity.
8. Do you think men also suffer in silence in the hands of women?
This question will bring the other side of men.
9. Why is it that there are many support groups for women who are mistreated and there is non for men?
The answer to this question will try to show how unfair morality of the law is.
10. How can we bridge the gap between the division in the work place of a “man’s job” and a “woman’s job”?
This will find the solution to fairness in roles and responsibilities.
11. Do you think women in our society have got similar rights in education as men?
This well sensitize on rights to education.
12. Between men and women, which is the majority that participates in processes of new leaders elections?
Fairness in election process participation is vital in gender equality.
13. Between lesbians and gay men, who are more socially accepted and why?
This will show how in silence men also surfer just like living in the past.
14. Should women be allowed to own as much property as men do?
The question is all about exposition of rights to wealth and property ownership.
15. What do you think is supposed to be done to let women come out and be accepted in the society as men have?
This will show acceptance of change that has taken place in the Canadian society, their readiness to embrace modernity and live according to the morality of the law.
References
Luque, B. (2009) Integrating Gender Equality and Human Rights in Evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.evaluationcanada.ca/distribution 20090602_sanz_luque_belen_pdf
Thorsten, N. (2005) Gender Inequality in Politics. Retrieved from http://www.koed.hu/mozaok15/thorsten.pdf
Martha, A.R. (2009) "Canadian Public Policy Responses to the Employment Status of Women",
Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 12 Iss: 4, pp.1 - 5
World Health Organization, (2006) “Gender Equality Work and Health: a review of the evidence” retrieved from http://www.who.int/gender/documents/Genderworkhealth.pdf
Campbell, A. (1990) Violence Between the Sexes: in the Marshall Cavendish Encyclopedia of Personal Relationships. North Bellmore, Marshall Cavendish Corporation.
