Gender inequality has over the years been a great barrier towards the development of the society. The female gender, women, and girls, have always fought for the equality of their gender with no success. However, gender equality has contributed to a great percentage of the many disadvantages that most women and girls experience. Gender inequality issue, therefore, refers to an unfair treatment of individuals basing their arguments solely on their gender orientation. Gender inequality is an issue that stems out from either distinction which can either be empirically grounded or at times socially constructed. The purpose of this paper is to state and describe the causes and effects of gender inequality in today’s society. (Nelson, Robert, and William, pp 122)
Cultural beliefs are the major contributors towards gender inequality. Many Third World countries, especially in Africa, hold strongly their cultural beliefs which lean towards the male gender more than the females. As a result, these beliefs become very difficult to eradicate from people’s minds once they get to grow up with such kind of a mentality. A case in point is the dowry system. Dowry is the payment which is given to the bride’s parents during marriage. A dowry payment was an assumption that once that amount of wealth is paid to the bride’s parents then it means that the groom owns the bride completely (Rhode, pp56). The dowry paid to the parents is therefore considered the amount of money or the total financial cost of the bride’s parents on their daughter. This system, therefore, gives a loophole for the females to be oppressed or to be used by men as their property and which only they, have a say to. This system, therefore, has heightened the level of gender inequality in the society given that the men are viewed to be more superior to women.
Another form of gender inequality stems out on the traditional preference of sexes in different societies. For instance in most of the African societies, a male child was valued due to a confirmation of continuity of the family legacy and lineage. This is because in most of these cases, the females are often married off to other lands, and the men remain in the homesteads. This has made many people prefer having male children to females. To this effect, therefore, most of the investment plans are made for the males and therefore it is evident that the males often dominate the world’s economy (Blau, Francine, Anne, and Klaus, pp143). However assuming the reverse happened so that there was business at birth where most parents favored the female children to males, then it means that the society would have more females than males. The same trend would happen, and the females would still be the world’s economy dominators. As a result, the male gender would be left out which still depicts that the gender inequality issue would have still stemmed out.
Gender inequality is an issue that directly or indirectly affect everyone living in the world. In most cases, the issue is experienced in the workplace and the society’s perception at large. Discrimination by gender, especially on women, has led to a poor education system. The society ought to grow together so that as men increase in knowledge, the females also make progress on their illiteracy level. Therefore, it means that women are not taken seriously, and only the men are considered in the education system then it shows that the society will only be growing only on a single side, which should not be the case (Jacobs, pp132). In recent research, the literacy rate of women in rated about 45% in comparison to 68% in men. Therefore, if men continue to get favored in the education sector, then it means the ladies will be left out in the education system which is a very unfair practice. This inadequate knowledge in the women only leads them to poor jobs, and inadequate wages and salaries which make most of them live below the poverty line.
Another effect of gender inequality is reduced productive efficiency in the workplaces and companies. It is true that everyone have their abilities and limits. Which explains why in a workplace people of different ethnicities and origins should work together to achieve a single desired outcome. However, many women are denied the chances to exploit their potentials in the employment field due to their gender as women. This has hindered the development of society in that the strengths and abilities that the women could have incorporated in the system, they end up not exploiting them at all and hence the production efficiency is reduced drastically (Ridgeway, pp 162).
In conclusion, despite the fact that there have been improvements towards gender discriminations, especially towards women, the truth is that most women are still lying on the poverty line because they are not given a chance to try out whatever abilities they have. The main reason all these happen lies in the traditional beliefs that are embedded in our societies. Therefore to curb this menace, we should first change the mentality and perception of the society on gender and make them see everyone as equal and not one being superior to another.
Works Cited
Nelson, Robert L, and William P. Bridges. Legalizing Gender Inequality: Courts, Markets, and Unequal Pay for Women in America. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Internet resource.
Rhode, Deborah L. Speaking of Sex: The Denial of Gender Inequality. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997. Print.
Blau, Francine D, Anne C. Gielen, and Klaus F. Zimmermann. Gender, Inequality, and Wages. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Jacobs, Jerry A. Gender Inequality at Work. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 1995. Print.
Ridgeway, Cecilia L. Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.
