Gender Discrimination
There is a plan and a purpose, a value to every life,
no matter what its location, age, gender or disability.
Sharron Angle
.
And at the same time, the position of men and women were generally set. The growth
of this situation has been obviously seen. According to a survey in America, female’s
salary at work is 75% as low as male’s. Coming back to last century, at work, when men
were paid 1 dollar, the amount that women received was just 58 cents, in accordance
with the law in 1963 (Tran 2012) . And in Vietnam, gender inequality is shown in the
difference between two genders in the number of babies. Statistics of Ministry of
Planning & Investment in 2010 reported that there were 110.6 new-born boys out of
100 new-born girls which was much higher than in the past.
However, as a matter of fact, gender discrimination has made a big argument in society
about whether the equality among genders should be encouraged or not. Regarding to
this problem, American people seem to appreciate the position of women, meanwhile,
the Chinese tend to think of higher power of men in life (Chang n.d.)
Thus, this paper, with the purpose of reporting the current states of gender inequality,
its impacts as well as the solutions to improve this trend, will give readers another look
at this controversial problem.
Discussion of findings
What is gender inequality?
Gender inequality is a social problem which causes unfair treatment in society between
different genders. These dissimilarities are distinguished from biological factors,
especially from differing reproductive roles in life (Reeves & Baden 2000). This
misperception comes originally from the wrong understanding about the position of
each gender in life.
Nowadays, the paradox that makes women suffer adversities and put women into
unpleasant situation is seen in every angle of life. However, the method of gender
discrimination in one place differs from that in others. For example, in workplace gender
inequality accelerates when entering the job racing, not only the dissimilar salary,
inequality at work is demonstrated through the differences between genders and the
amount of money paid (Hsu 2012). In the aspect of education, in the past, men are
prone to have more chances to go to school. Young women seemed to have fewer
opportunities for higher education than young men (Dang 2008, p.25)
Regarding to the reasons and the origin of gender inequality, it can be seen that Asia
would be the place where gender discrimination has seemed to be a “tradition”.
According to the General office for population family planning, the idea of
distinguishing men from women came from the impacts of Confucianism and the
awareness of people about life. Men were thought to have a duty of continuing the
ancestral line. In that society, not having a son meant to be disrespectful towards the
ancestor. Going on with this wrong conception, women are more likely to lose the role
in community (Nguyen n.d.)
How gender inequality affects lives?
Initially, gender inequality has effects on the scale of population. According to statistics
of the General office for population family planning (Nguyen n.d.), because of the
discrimination of genders, the number of new-born boys and girls is unequal. To some
people, the hope to have a son loses the balance between two genders. Unfortunately,
this situation has occurred for such a long time, so the impacts of it in the population
are rather huge. As report of Ministry of public health, it is estimated that, despite the
attempt to reduce the fluctuation between the birth of boys and girls, in 2020 there will
be 4.3 million men more than women. Minister of ministry of public health statement
(cited in Phuong 2012), said that if this trend still keeps on going, it will lead to quite a
few consequences in security and the order of society before marriage age of children
because there will lack brides resulting from out-numbered new-born boys from girls.
Now we can see an obvious consequence among the Chinese. According to a Blue
Paper on Society released by the China Academy of Social Science, there will run short
of brides in ten years because of severe gender imbalance among young people,
particularly among under 19-aged people (Tang 2010).
Secondly, the discrimination of genders leads to some problems in education. Education
is an important tool, is the key to the growth of human. And no matter what gender a
person is, he has right to expose to education like others. Chaudhry & Rahman (2009
p.175), reported that “there are many empirical evidences that, increase in female
education improves human development outcomes such as child survival, health and
schooling”. However, “lower female education had a negative impact on economic
growth as it lowered the average level of human capital” (Klasen 2002, cited in Chaudhry
& Rahman 2009, p.175). World Bank in 2001 stated that in almost all poor countries,
there is a high trend of educational impacts of gender inequality. In poverty, girls are
more likely to be influenced to approach education.
Finally, economy is the field that is consequently affected, because there is a link
between education and economy. The impact of gender inequality on economy is found
through the number of male and female students in primary and secondary school
which is negative (Barro and Lee (1994) and Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995), cited
Stephan Klasen 1999, p.4). And they claimed that “a large gap in male and female
schooling may signify backwardness and may therefore be associated with lower
economic growth”( Barro and Lee (1994) and Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995)). And let’s
take China- a country which is famous for strong gender imbalance all over the world-
as an example of modeling the impact of gender imbalances on economic performance
(Golley &Tyers 2012). As mentioned earlier, China is facing a lack of brides 10 years to
go and this trend leads to the problems of women purchasing crime. Especially men in
poor provinces now are exposing to “marriage market” and this situation makes “the
black market of “selling wife”” on the rise, said the deputy director of the China
Population Association- Tian Xueyuan (cited Tang 2010). Another economic impact of
gender discrimination is unequal wages among male and female. According to Yang
Juhua, a professor with Renmin University, the wages of women is much lower than
men’s despite the same level of position (cited Tang 2010). Tang also mentioned the
chances to get a job of women are smaller and there is more likelihood of being refused
on applying for jobs.
How to solve this problem?
Ninety-three years ago, people in some places in the world first officially celebrated the
International women’s day. In ninety three years, there have been a lot of changes made
in terms of changing attitudes of people about the inequality of genders. Nowadays we
are living in a developed world which is contributed by both men and female so why
female have to suffer such that inequality which they don’t deserve to?
Generally speaking, this kind of inequality has existed for a long time and in every area
of the world, no matter where it is (Chang n.d.). Now it’s time for the world together
make this out-of-date conception fade away. To some extent, the Nobel Committee
stated that we cannot reach democracy and peace unless we wouldn’t give equal rights
and chances for women have. For the sake of making economic recovery, U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton claimed that promoting women to participate in economy and
increasing their productivity is the key to economic growth because it will create an
effect on “the competitiveness and growth of our economies.” (cited Sharma & Keefe
2011).
In the relationship between economy and education, people cannot underestimate the
importance of education. To flourish the economy system, people have to make an
effort on schooling. Regarding to the solutions to this, setting up gender-sensitive
schools is a crucial step in making a nice environment for learning and teaching. Helping
female feel more confident in studying, improving a gender-sensitive curriculum which
reflects national policy on gender equality to instruct is also necessary (Clarke 2005,
p.11)
Conclusion
From all the discussing above, gender inequality is obviously an urgent problem in the
world. Despite the fact that its volume much decreases, it still exists and makes a lot of
people suffer its consequences every day. And there are many reasons leading to
gender discrimination which cannot be solved easily. However, with education and
progressive thoughts of people, there are also reasons to trust in the future of gender
inequality being stopped. Then, hopefully, people can live in fairness no matter what
gender they are.
