It is a well-known fact in today’s modern world that gender inequality is prevalent in almost all aspects of social life, whether in the smallest unit of society, such as the family, or in the broad expanse of the global community, impacting the life circumstances of each and every human being today, especially women. It is increasingly becoming apparent that the unfair practice of gender inequality is incongruently counter-productive in a globalized economic scenario. Despite decades of initiatives to resolve this problematic social issue, the problem still remains. In the earliest days of humankind more than a hundred thousand years ago, men and women were equals as they lived their lives in small communities (Harman, 2008 p.8). For the past several thousand years, however, it is common knowledge that circumstances have changed as the social dominance of the male over the female became more and more pronounced, all while greater and grander civilizations rose and fell. With the incessant growth of the human race, gender inequality has evolved after centuries of social interactions between increasingly larger societies where males carried increasingly greater authority on behalf of their respective groups. This authority that males possessed transformed mindset at the social level, ultimately trickling down to the individual level. Following this train of thought, the sociological imagination posited by Mills in 1959, the insights of Harman in 2008, and the work of Duneier and Appelbaum prove to be invaluable and as such, discussions will generally revolve around these three texts. Gender inequality can only be eradicated through a transformation of the global social mindset, the effects of which will ultimately trickle down to the personal life circumstances of each individual member of the global society.
The Status of Women in a Global Context
In today’s global society, it can be stated that the discrimination of women in various sectors of society is a social ill that must be confronted and resolved. The problem is understandably counter-productive at the national level but it has even greater consequences when viewed at a global scale. In this context, it is mentioned by Duneier and Appelbaum (2008) that according to the International Labor Organization (2007), more than 40 percent of the global workforce population consists of women (p.277). Against their male counterparts, this marginalized group suffers from inequality at the economic and political fronts, two of the most vital components of today’s global society. This is synonymous to stating that almost half of the global workforce is discouraged to work optimally.
At the economic level, the issues involve difficulty in acquiring management-level positions upon hiring, lower pay in comparison to men holding similar jobs, and glass ceiling practices which inhibit the career progress of women to the top ranks (Duneier & Appelbaum, 2008 p.280). Irrefutably, the corporate world continues to be dominated by men, as women are pushed to the sidelines until their retirement. Despite the fact that there have been a few notable women leaders in the past as well as in the present, the practice of gender inequality becomes readily evident when considering the fact that there are relatively fewer women CEOs as compared to men.
The same is true on the political front, as pointed out by Duneier and Appelbaum (2008) that out of the one hundred and ninety-two UN member states, only twenty countries were headed by women (p.280). In the United States, where the fight for gender equality has been in motion for more than a century, it is common knowledge that no female has ever occupied the oval office despite the exhaustive efforts of Hillary Clinton for the presidency. This is interesting to note since America is not known to have a male dominant society such as in Monaco and Saudi Arabia. As of 2008, these countries have never had a female politician in recorded history; collectively as of 2007, women politicians covered a mere 17.4 percent membership in national offices around the world (ibid). Nevertheless, it is evident that despite the slow progress of gender equality groups through history, there have been advances in this particular advocacy. However, more work needs to be done in order to sustain the cause and finally alter structural features of the global society toward desirable ends.
Evolutionary Relevance of Social Structural Features to Gender Inequality Today
As supported by scientific evidence, it is mentioned by Harman (2008) that in the earliest days of civilized life, competition, inequality, and oppression were non-existent (p.3). It is interesting to note that a comparison of the structural features of today’s world and that of the earliest societies reveals that egalitarianism served as the foundation of human survival. This is in stark contrast to the “greed, gross inequalities between the rich and poor, racist and national chauvinist prejudice, barbarous practices and horrific wars” that prevail in the structural features of the 21st century world (Harman, 2008 p.3). For years, it has been the popular assumption that the ‘killing imperative’ has always been a primordial human instinct for survival and that this has led society to the deplorable social conditions that now beset it.
In the earliest days, clans consisted of only thirty to forty individuals, with some as many as two hundred members (Harman, 2008 p.6). For food, men hunted wild game while women gathered fruits, berries, and other edible food sources. It is further cited by Harman (2008) that the gathering work of women sustained the men while they hunted for meat and as such, they complemented each other and no gender was more superior to the other (p.8). Especially during pregnancy, it is easy to imagine that the women could not be exposed to the mortal dangers of hunting because it would endanger the growth of the clan. It can be assumed that the bigger the clan, the more productive it could be and, therefore, the women were naturally protected against harm. It was the men who were more exposed to the outside world and it is understandable that whenever the paths of different clans crossed, such as during hunting expeditions, it was the men who represented their respective clans. I argue that it was at this juncture that the concept of male authority first took shape. As time progressed through the millennia, clan members grew in number and it was always the male who represented his own group; the larger the clan, the greater the responsibility and authority that the male representative(s) carried.
The argument posited by Mills in 1959 regarding society and sociological imagination contends that the individual contributes to the society and thus helps shape it; the society that has been created, in turn, impacts and dictates the life circumstances of each individual member (Wysocki, 2008 p.9). Ultimately, the individual feels trapped and helpless in the kind of life that such a society can offer. In this context, I posit that the social structural features of primitive yet egalitarian civilizations – where the women were protected and the men represented the clans and thus had authority – paved the way to an increasing social consciousness that the male carried more authority than the female. As time passed and the individual clans grew in size, more members were able to contribute work to their respective groups. The individual groups became more productive, more powerful, and greater responsibility and authority for the representative males came with it. Slowly but surely, society turned its back on gender equality and increasingly assumed the conditions that we now find ourselves in. Individually, women nowadays generally feel helpless against social/gender inequality, proving the soundness of the argument of Mills.
Conclusion
It is an established fact that gender discrimination which particularly violate the human rights of women continues to be a social ill in today’s modern, globalized world. There is therefore a need to ultimately resolve this problem until it is eradicated in order to optimize the potentials of women so that they may fully contribute to the global society of today and of tomorrow. To this end, the argument of Mills on the sociological imagination is of timeless value. It allows present-day people to understand how each individual shapes the society he or she lives in and how individual lives inevitably follow the dictates of the society that has been created. Specifically problematic in this instance is the concept of male dominance, an apparently deep-seated social notion that has proven to be difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, there is hope that this social ill will ultimately be eradicated through an altering of the global social mindset. In this manner, a new social perspective can positively impact all sectors of society, down to the level of the individual.
Works Cited
Duneier, Mitchell, & Appelbaum, Richard. Essentials of Sociology. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
Harman, Chris. A People’s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium. London: Verso, 2008.
Wysocki, Diane. [Ed.]. Readings in Social Research Methods. Belmont, CA: Thomas Higher Education, 2008.
