Reasons to Eliminate Gender Inequality and Discrimination: Analytical Essay

We are all familiar with the term ‘gender inequality’ throughout the time. In the past, this question was always raised whether people can solve the problem or not? But nowadays, thanks to social media and people’s awareness, gender problems have been largely resolved. In this essay, I will analyze two big questions which are why ‘gender inequality’ was a concern in the past and how is the gender problems have been resolved now?

Over time, gender inequality has always been a concern in social justice. Women have been faced an immense amount of discrimination throughout history and also in many societies, they are still be considered as being less than fully human. Gender inequality has existed and still exists because of the lack of legal rights to have actually been scientifically thought of having inferior brains than men. First, in social justice, the differences between sexes have risen since the beginning of time. Take the case in Canada’s society, it was not until the year of 1848 that the first women’s rights convention was held, and then not until April 25th, 1940 that every Canadian had granted the right to vote (1). In some countries, women are still prohibited from having a driving license or in the middle east countries, they are subject to extreme clothing restrictions. In addition, women do not have the right to divorce when they feel unhappy with their marriage or even worst is that they are the victims of violence and sexual subjugation. Although these examples above may seem intense in Canada women are still subject to a great deal of political, social and economic discrimination.

On the other hand, the workplace is also another environment where discrimination happens. There are four core issues that fuel gender inequality in the workplace. Unequal pay is the first thing I would like to mention. I take the case in Canada, the gender pay gap is actually twice that of the global average, with Canadian women earning 0.82$ to every 1$ earned by men (2). This difference may seem insignificant; however, that variance equates to an 8000$ pay gap between males and female in Canada (2). Therefore, more than half of women leave the workforce for at least a year, which is twice the rate of men. Sexual harassment and Racism are also two core issues that women have to deal with on a daily basis. For sexual harassment, while the #MeToo movement has helped on the issue but until now, not many people know exactly how many women are subjected to the mistreatment. A non-profit organization found out that 38 percent of women have experienced sexual harassment in their workplace, and 81 percent reported experiencing many forms of sexual harassment such as verbal or physical assault(3). Work-related factors are the factor that might increase the risk of sexual harassment or assault. Women working in restaurants who mainly rely on tips for their main source of income are twice as likely to experience sexual harassment. This is a sad reality that we still have to face in the labor workforce. Unfortunately, racism plays a major role in how women are treated and compensated. The salary woman receives may vary depending on her race and ethnicity. Asia companies pay their female workers median annual earnings with 46,000$. Women in Western countries can receive an amount at 40,000$, while Native American and Hispanic women receive the lowest pay, earing 31,000$ and 28,000$ per year. Compared to men, the money women receive is lower than man although females perform just as males. In the past, the gender issues was about Gendered Hierarchy, Gendered Occupations, Glass Ceiling, Gendered Assumptions, Gendered Cultures which still exists nowadays. In the next part of the essay, I would like to draw attention to how the government is trying to resolve gender problems in the workplace.

As the statement mentioned above, the gender problems have been largely resolved. So what can government do to reduce gender inequality? According to MGI, there are many types of intervention that can be applied to bridge gender gaps. We can start with changing the policy organizations treating women or how they pay the salary for females equal to their performances.

As a policymaker, there is lots to do to create an equal environment for women’s equality. According to MGI, there are 38 out of 91 countries have extremely high inequality. For example, India is one of the countries has lots of sexual harassment happened to women. Although there are laws to protect women from family violence or harassment but still, I think it is not enough. Also in 2017, women have the right to inherit property and paid maternity longer from 12 to 26 weeks. In European countries like United Kingdom, the government is requiring big companies to public their gender pay gap.(4)The tax system is also an effective tool for the government to increase women access to more jobs. Take Canada as an example, the reduction of tax contribution on second earners have increased the female labor-force. Or in Germany, the introduction of 12 months of paid leave has led to an increase in women’s workforce participation as well as the increase in the fertility rate. In some countries, free childcare is provided in order to assist mothers have more time to seek for a job and working to raise their kids. In addition, the government is now playing a key role in education and training women for a better background. The Singapore Skill Future national movement has provided citizens to learn new skills or improve their current skills when they get back to work from a recess. When the government plays as a financer, one of a secret weapons which we might not notice is the public money. Like in the Philippines, 5 percent of the national government budget is required to be allocated to the initiatives for solving gender problems.(4)

Overall, there are lots of programs or policies in which the government is trying to resolve the gender problem. We might see and think that these plans could make a big influence on bridging the gender gap in reality. However, in some modern organizations, gender inequality is still a hard question to solve. Uber- a familiar name in the transportation services- was investigated because of gender discrimination in the company. In 2017, gender discrimination has been widely discussed issue after a former Uber engineer published an account of the sexism and sexual harassment she experienced when she worked for Uber. Furthermore, the company’s chief operating officer was reported to make insensitive racial comments in a meeting about an ad that featured a mixed-race couple. This movement also showed how the COO spoke about women and minorities in other situations. It is a sad reaction to such a big company in the campaign against gender inequality (5). Or statistics show that in Australia, although in 2019 the pay gap is down for 1.1% compared to last year, still equates to a huge amount of about 27,500$ per year for the differences between males and females. According to the fifth Workplace Gender Equality Agency, on average, a man could expect to bring home 21.3% more in the total of remuneration than a woman. To be more specific, in the full-time base salary, the difference across all industries and occupations is pretty high as well, about 16.2% of women will earn less than a man. The number of women CEOs in the last five years just slightly increase by 1.4% ( from 15.7% in 2013-2014 to 17.1% in 2017-2018)which has not cracked the glass ceiling much more. The pay gap still existed in every industry in Australia regardless of occupation and manager category. Lastly, one of the highest differences was in the financial and insurance industry, a woman is expected to make 30.3% less than a man.(6)

In a nutshell, I think gender inequality has always been a major issue for not only the government but also for individuals to solve. There are lots of movements and actions from the government to reduce the gap between genders and prevent discrimination in the workplace but still, we need more. In my opinion, changes can come from every single one, we need to recognize that gender inequality is an emergent problem so that we could have a suitable behavior or movement to improve. Women deserve equal chances, equal pay and equal treat just as man cause women can learn and perform themselves to contribute their work. We need to speak up for ourselves and spread the voice for women to everybody joining the campaign to against the gender discrimination.

References

1. Morley, Constance. (2016). Lecture 6: Oppression, resistance and social justice (PowerPoint slides). Retrieved from Saint Paul University Inequality, Conflict and Social Justice Blackboard: uottawa.blackboard.com/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_43778_1&content_id=_975610_1&mode=reset
2. The Huffington Post. (2016, March 21). Gender Pay Gap In Canada. Retrieved March 21, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/06/gender-pay-gap-canada_n_7223508.html
3. The Huffington Post. (2013, April 25). 228 Years Until Gender Equality! Go Canada! RetrievedMarch 21, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/25/canada-gender-gap-_n_3156904.html
4. https://cyrus-nemati-w8d5.squarespace.com/blog/gender-equality-workplace-issues
5. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/accelerating-gender-parity-what-can-governments-do
6. Uber’s gender discrimination problems are the focus of a federal investigation by Sean O’Kane: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17576808/uber-gender-discrimination-federal-investigation
7. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/12/australian-men-earn-213-more-than-their-female-colleagues-review-finds
8. Anisman-Razin, M., Kark, R., Saguy, T., Ryan, M., & Morgenroth, T. (2018). “Putting gender on the table”: Understanding reactions to women who discuss gender inequality. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(5), 690-706.
9. Wodon, Q., & De La Brière, B. (2018). Unrealized Potential: The High Cost of Gender Inequality in Earnings (The Cost of Gender Inequality). Washington, DC: World Bank.