Inequalities in our society: gender and sex Essay

Inequalities between men and women had been in struggle I believe as older than I am, as older than my ancestors. Everyday I see simple proofs that although we are in the 21st century, although we are living on the fast lane, we are still shackled with the shadows of the past. According to Gallup Surveys, in 1946 Americans felt by a margin of 54%-19% that women live more difficult lives than men. More than one-half century later that margin had increased to 57%-7% with most of that change swing to increasing agreement among men (from a 47% to 27% margin in 1946 to 52%-19% in 1997. In the 1930s, 26 of 48 states had Laws prohibiting the employment of married women. (It was the midst of the Great Depression and there were not enough jobs to keep the men out of political mischief, so married women had to go. ) As human beings it is only natural for a caged man to seek freedom. Freedom from injustices and realize their rights. One great example will be the foundation of ‘Living the Legacy: The Women’s Rights Movement in 1848’. In her ‘Declaration of Sentiments’ Stanton’s version read, â€Å"the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world†. Then she went into the specifics. †¢ Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law †¢ Women were not allowed to vote †¢ Women had to submit to the laws when they had no voice in their formation †¢ Married women had no property rights. †¢ Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity †¢ Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to women †¢ Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes †¢ Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned †¢ Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law †¢ Women had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students. †¢ With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of the church †¢ Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect, and were made totally dependent on men Strong words†¦ Large grievances†¦ And remember: This was just seventy years after the Revolutionary War. Doesn’t it seem surprising to you that this unfair treatment of women was the norm in this new, very idealistic democracy? But this Declaration of Sentiments spelled out what was the status quo for European-American women in 1848 America, while it was even worse for enslaved Black women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s draft continued: â€Å"Now, in view of this entire disenfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, — in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States. † Here some additional aspects that the organization dealt with: help-wanted ads in newspapers were segregated into â€Å"Help wanted – women† and â€Å"Help wanted- men. † Pages and pages of jobs were announced for which women could not even apply. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled this illegal in 1968, but since the EEOC had little enforcement power, most newspapers ignored the requirement for years. The National Organization for Women (NOW), had to argue the issue all the way to the Supreme Court to make it possible for a woman today to hold any job for which she is qualified. And so now we see women in literally thousands of occupations which would have been almost unthinkable just one generation ago: dentist, bus driver, veterinarian, airline pilot, and phone installer, just to name a few. To site another example, an article was written about a woman prayer leader, an Islamic scholar at Virginia Commonwealth University, Amina Wadud. The organizers who invited her claimed that she is the first woman to have presided over a mixed gender prayer service in public since Islam’s earliest days. The event was held in cavernous hall in the grounds of New York City’s cathedral church of St. John the Divine because no major mosque would play host to it. â€Å"There are still men who believe women are not allowed to be leaders. They’re bullies,† says organizer Asra Nomani, an author. Furthermore she said that it was time that women take their rightful place alongside men. Last fall, at Chicago’s Muslim Community Center, a 6-feet partition that had long divided the genders during prayer was was reduced to 3-feet after several women protested. That enabled the women to see the ‘imam’ in front, and center president Mohammed Kaiseruddin says the change has helped women â€Å"feel like part of the congregation. † Another woman whose a Muslim, Nomanis , according to her fight began on her return to Morgantown, W. Va.from a pilgrimage to Mecca, â€Å"I experienced full and unfettered access to the holy mosque in Mecca,† Back in Morgantown, she decided to defy a ban that forbade women to use the from entrance and pray in the man hall with the men. Mosque leaders are considering banishing her for such disruptive behavior, but she feels she’s making progress. She prays in the main hall now and say,† they just pretend I’m not there. † For a more grave evident in the issue of inequality between men and women, it has been noted that violence against women has been called â€Å"the most pervasive yet least recognized human right abuse in the world. † The Vienna Human Rights Conference and the Fourth World Conference on Women were organizations that gave priority to this issue, which jeopardizes women’s lives, bodies, psychological integrity and freedom. Violence may have profound effects- direct and indirect on a woman’s reproductive health including: †¢ Unwanted pregnancies and restricted access to family planning information and contraceptives †¢ Unsafe abortion or injuries sustained during a legal abortion after an unwanted pregnancy †¢ Complications from frequent, high-risk pregnancies and lack of follow-up care. †¢ Sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS †¢ Persistent gynaecological problems †¢ Psychological problems The noted violence intentionally or unintentionally perpetuates male power and control. Despite the evidences a culture of silence exists and denial of the seriousness of the health consequences of abuse. Most domestic violence involves male anger directed against their women partners. This gender difference appears to be rooted in the way boys and men are socialized — biological factors do not seem to account for the dramatic differences in behaviour in this regard between men and women. Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. Some husbands become more violent during the wife’s pregnancy, even kicking or hitting their wives in the belly. These women run twice the risk of miscarriage and four times the risk of having a low birth-weight baby. Cross-cultural studies of wife abuse have found that nearly a fifth of peasant and small-scale societies are essentially free of family violence. The existence of such cultures proves that male violence against women is not the inevitable result of male biology or sexuality, but more a matter of how society views masculinity. Studies of very young boys and girls show only that, although boys may have a lower tolerance for frustration, and a tendency towards rough-and-tumble play, these tendencies are dwarfed by the importance of male socialization and peer pressure into gender roles. The prevalence of domestic violence in a given society, therefore, is the result of tacit acceptance by that society. The way men view themselves as men, and the way they view women, will determine whether they use violence or coercion against women. UNFPA recognizes that ending gender-based violence will mean changing cultural concepts about masculinity, and that process must actively engage men, whether they be policy makers, parents, spouses or young boys. The majority of sexual assault victims are young. Women in positions of abject dependence on male authorities are also particularly subject to unwanted sexual coercion. Rape in time of war is still common. It has been extensively documented in recent civil conflicts, and has been used systematically as an instrument of torture or ethnic domination. Resulting from the inequalities happening between men and women, Sandra Lipsitz Bem decided to create a book discussing the matter in psychological perception. Her book was entitled ‘The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality’. According to Sandra there were three lenses that were evident: androcentrism, gender polarization, and biological essentialism. Androcentrism, defined as male-centeredness, moreover, these are definitions of male and male experience as a neutral standard or norm, and females and female experience as a sex-specific deviation from that norm. it is thus, not that man is treated as superior and woman as inferior but that man is treated as human and woman as â€Å"other. † Gender polarization is the more subtle and insidious use of the perceived difference as an organizing principle for the social life of the culture. This male-female difference is super imposed in so many aspects of the social world that a cultural connection is thereby forged between sex and virtually every other aspect of human experience, including modes of dress and social roles and even ways of expressing emotion and experiencing sexual desire. The last lens is Biological essentialism, which rationalizes and legitimizes both other lenses by treating them as the natural and inevitable consequences of the intrinsic biological natures of women and men. According to Sandra, the lenses systematically reproduce male power in two ways. First, the discourses and social institutions in which they are embedded automatically channel female and males into different and unequal life situations. Second, during enculturation, the individual gradually internalizes the cultural lenses and thereby becomes motivated to construct identity that is consistent with them. In line with my research, I concluded that our society have still a lot of work to be done to deal with the issue of inequality among men and women. Even in a famous novel like The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown the plot of the story was about the conspiracy of having a woman be seated at the right hand of Jesus of Nazareth. Abuses of women were told. Fiction as it may seem the whole story had a very astounding effect to anyone who read it challenging their faith intentionally or unintentionally. That was why there had been some instances where the movie of â€Å"Da Vinci Code† were tried to be banned on showing in other countries where Catholicism religion is dominating. I just want to reiterate from my comparison that authors usually based their pieces according to what they see, imagine or deal with everyday life. From my point of view, the author might have not said it literally but I know that he wanted to imply that we need look at how we look and treat women per se. We can never change the world overnight but we it can be done one step at a time, I hope that the first step would be mine. Works Cited Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Living the Legacy: The Women’s Rights Movement. 1848-1998 Eisenberg, Bonnie. Ruthsdotten, Mary. The National Women’s History Project. 1998 â€Å"Gender Equality: An End in Itself and a Cornerstone of Development. http://www. unfpa. org/gender/index. htm Heise, L. Violence Against Women: the Hidden Health Burden. World Bank Discussion Paper. Washington D. C. The World Bank. 1994 Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality. Yale University Press. 1993 http://www. trinity. edu/rmkearl/gender. html Chu, Jeff. Mustafa, Nadia. Her Turn To Pray. Time Magazine. March 21,2005.