understanding gender inequality
Some facts about women:
- 50 % of the world population is female.
- 12% of the heads of government in the world are female.
- 20% of senior management positions are held by females.
Conclusion:
- men make a disproportionate number of the important decisions that affect all of humanity.
Possible reasons:
- women have the same opportunities as men but are not interested in being involved in decision-making and think this role is better suited to men.
- women have the same opportunities as men but don’t have the innate abilities required to get the decision-making jobs.
- women are discriminated against and unlikely to be chosen for decision-making roles.
Possible solutions
- if women have the same opportunities as men but are not as interested or as able as men, then this is something that society needs to change through education and the provision of role models. Balance, fairness and understanding are not addressed by one group holding all the power. I personally advocate the use of positive discrimination to redress all imbalance in power. History tells us the that the white, heterosexual male is not an impeccable decision-maker, and if natural tendencies to follow the cultural norm are continually adhered to, change may never come.
- if women are discriminated against, this is something that society needs to change through adherence to equality laws, and education regarding the roots and consequences of discrimination.
Other possible approaches:
- write off the damaging attitude to women inherent in society as being completely unrelated to the trivialisation and the sexual objectification of women that bombards us from every angle.
- blame women for growing up in a society that objectifies them and for being dumb enough to join in.
- circulate semi-naked pictures of girls with nice bodies, adding thoughtful comments that illustrate your understanding of the seriousness of sex discrimination, such as “She has a great body is damn good looking and is using her natural talents to make a living. Good for her!” or “Women get upset no matter what you do. The only conclusion that can be reached is that it doesn’t really matter what you do. If they are going to be pissed off, you might as well enjoy yourself.”
Thanks, as ever, to Ark and myatheistlife for their informative view on life and their attitudes that challenge ignorant behaviour and out-dated stereotypes. An example to all free-thinking atheist males on how to criticise and overcome the models presented by the harmful patriarchal religions in our societies. I love that we’re in an era where we can move past this.
It’s an interesting subject, as ever, Violetwisp, but I find it difficult to say something about this. Discrimination of women is a bad thing and I am quite sure it can be found in every country. Something should be done. The problem is, I don’t believe in positive discrimination either. I remember a girlfriend of mine, who happens to be black, making a promotion. Instantly, people were telling each other that she must have been promoted because of her colour. Therefore, they assumed standards had been lowered to give her that job. They did not believe she was really capable.
I knew her to be extremely intelligent, with great social skills, but because of people expecting positive discrimination in this particular organisation, she was not taken seriously.
Therefore, if you really want to change things, people have to change. The way we bring up our kids has to change. But people will only change if they can see the benefit. And that benefit should be in the near future. So who is going to change them, and how? – I really don’t know.
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Thanks, that’s a really interesting point. My understanding of the recruitment selection process is that there is a person specification and minimum criteria that any applicant must meet before the being considered for the position. Anyone who gets the job is qualified and able. The difference that positive discrimination can make is that it cuts through some of the bias that people inevitably hold when they are making the final cut. It’s much easier to imagine someone whose cultural/gender profile is the norm with will fit the job when appointing staff – negative discrimination is a given, positive discrimination redresses that balance. This is especially true when it comes to senior management roles, where unfortunately many establish male groupings, such as ‘old boys networks’, are prominent, and the qualities that people erroneously believe make the best managers are often more prominent in males. Your ex-girlfriend’s negative experience unfortunately does nothing but reflect the ignorance of her co-workers. Staff working for any organisation that has a positive discrimination policy should be part of the decision process in implementing it so that the kind of urban myth about appointing unqualified people based on ethnicity or gender isn’t an issue.
The other aspect to consider is that until people see people like them in certain roles, it doesn’t often feel like an achievable goal to aspire to, and you see generations of women or minority groups following the roles and expectations that society gives them. I think it’s especially important that politicians, who are making the biggest decisions about our countries, are a true reflection of the population. I don’t think we should wait 10 generations for equality processes to naturally seep through all the barriers, when we can provide role models and opportunities for more than capable people that can inspire the next generation to go for it with less of a leg-up.
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I very much agree with your latter point: it is so important to have these images of women (or people from minority groups) achieving everything under the sun! I think in that sense, history is biased too (it sounds strange to put it that way). What I mean is that women seem to get lost. Have you heard about Rosalind Franklin’s contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA? If you’ve got the time, you might read the wikipedia article on Francis Crick…Do remember to read between the lines! 😉 This report is just as muddled and biased as it gets. And in most accounts of this fascinating story, Franklin is not even mentioned.
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Normally I can tell the difference between your serious commentary and your tongue-in-cheek proposals. This one baffles me, however. I can only read it as tongue-in-cheek, but am totally lost as to the point you are making. The rest of your post had some great points. This one threw me.
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Yes, apologies for the lack of clarity there. That was my attempt at searing sarcasm towards this comment from myatheistlife. He and Ark seem to spend most of their days lambasting the hideousness of Christianity and importance of rational thinking, and yet these are their attitudes towards women. It’s depressing really.
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Where’s my sandwich?
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Bloody Aussies. More sexist than any other race I know, I tell ya!
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Yeah, yeah… whatever. Now seriously, where’s my sandwich?
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Shut up and take the rubbish out!
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That’s what the kids’ for, ain’t it…
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I’m always wary of statements like this.
Just a few weeks ago I read a political article about some country whose name escapes me at the moment. The article included a statement like “the country is giving up the potential of half of its workforce” and then a few paragraphs later something like “with disproportionately more men than women in the country, it’s often challenging for the young men to find suitable brides.” What gives? It’s either half or it’s not half.
I just checked wikipedia, and for what it’s worth, it says that roughly 49.75% of the world’s population is female. I guess if you’re rounding to the nearest whole number, 50% is close enough. So I’ll give you a pass for today.
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Yeah, I had a look at that too because I thought it was more like 49%. It does seem to vary a little more from country to country but balances out pretty finely on the final count. What an amazing design! 🙂
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The reason it doesn’t balance in China is due to their prolonged 1-child policy which resulted in parents being selective, usually in favour of a son. How this was achieved, I’m not sure but believe from IVF to selective abortions anything was probably used. Now all these sons are young men, and not enough women for them…
There’s an old-wives’ wisdom that when there are more men than women, a country goes to war (to burn up the excess young men as soldiers). Scary thought.
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When will it be “Equal”? 12% of heads of state are female. It is possible. There are few to no more barriers to women (lots of barriers for people but few to none specific to women) When is it time to smile and say “Mission Accomplished”? When do we have real equality? Will you be happy when politics and business look like acedima? With a 2:1 ratio of women to men? We still hear the call for more women in school, even though women out number men two to one. When will we have “equality” in education? 4 women for every man? 5? 20? Do we need to exclude men entirely from education for it to be “Equal”. Do you think this broken “math” won’t apply to government or business?
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Thanks for the the thoughtful questions. I totally agree that more men need to be encouraged to enter the teaching professions. Stereotyping career choices based on gender is another issue. I think there has been some positive movement in most countries to attract more men into teaching. However, within these figures, the most relevant data to the discussion here would be if we have a corresponding ratio in the senior positions.
I think it’s important that all sectors of society are involved in decision-making, and not just those who have culturally been used to this right. I’m not clear if you’re happy with the status quo as it is or if you genuinely think men have been unfairly excluded from careers such as teaching or nursing. What do you feel the ideal scenario would be?
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To talk of the past would complicate matters far to much. I will speak of the way things are and the way things “Should” be.
Men are not unfairly excluded from nursing, but there is discrimination against men for teaching positions. Only about 5% of k-8 teachers are male, and that number is falling fast.
Women are not unfairly excluded from any jobs that I’m aware of (there may be some, but I’m not currently aware of them). It takes time to build qualifications and experience, so low numbers of women in top management right now is a reflection of discrimination that happened 30 years ago, not current discrimination.
The way I think it “Should” be? Well, gender should not be a consideration. The person with the best education, the most experience, the best qualified for a position should get it. Race, Gender, sexual orientation or hair color shouldn’t be a consideration. This does mean that there will be unequal results. We won’t have gender parity, but we will have true equality.
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“Race, Gender, sexual orientation or hair color shouldn’t be a consideration.” I think everyone would agree with this. I guess it’s how we get there that causes the differences in opinion. I would like to think you’re right that there currently isn’t any discrimination, and that the numbers now only reflect the situation 30 year ago. However, I don’t really believe that’s the case, in spite of legislation. With regards to ongoing discrimination and the benefits of positive discrimination, as I said in response further up the post to livelysceptic:
“My understanding of the recruitment selection process is that there is a person specification and minimum criteria that any applicant must meet before the being considered for the position. Anyone who gets the job is qualified and able. The difference that positive discrimination can make is that it cuts through some of the bias that people inevitably hold when they are making the final cut. It’s much easier to imagine someone whose cultural/gender profile is the norm will fit the job when appointing staff – negative discrimination is a given, positive discrimination redresses that balance. This is especially true when it comes to senior management roles, where unfortunately many establish male groupings, such as ‘old boys networks’, are prominent, and the qualities that people erroneously believe make the best managers are often more prominent in males.”
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This is an agree to disagree situation. You do have a point, but I think your wrong. I think you are trying to push social change to fast. These things take time. Lots and lots of time. Real social change does not happen in years or even decades. It takes generations to implement real social change. My mother was discriminated against 25 years ago. This cost her an opportunity which means about 50,000/year in take home pay. To try and fix this affect of discrimination will also help my sister that never faced that discrimination. Trying to fix the discrimination that happened 25 years ago will cost my better qualified brother this same opportunity denied my mother. It will fabricate discrimination against men in younger workers. As I said, agree to disagree. Your position is not without merit, but I still think it’s wrong.
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Since Affirmative Action does not require you to hire an unqualified applicant, how is your buddy “hurt”? You give a real life example of your mom, but was your buddy forever hurt or did he find another job where he, on average, makes $1.00 while his female peers make $0.70-$0.75?
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“Equal Opportunity” does.
The pay gap. Well no he couldn’t find a job like that. The pay gap is not some uniform thing that oppresses women. Women in my Mother’s Generation where discriminated against. Women in my Mother’s Generation are still half of all women in the work force. Women in my Mother’s generation are making HALF of what they would without discrimination. This is the result of discrimination that happened 20-40 years ago that denied them experience. Women in my generation where not discriminated against, and make roughly equal pay. Women in the youngest generation are making MORE than young men. If we try and fix the affects of past discrimination we will fix the affects of past discrimination and legally enforce discrimination against young men. It is much much more important that we do not perpetuate problems for generations. It isn’t good that my Mother was discriminated against. The cost of fixing it is just too high.
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I’m glad someone else understands positive discrimination properly. The opposition has done a great job of ruining it’s credibility. Having been on the selection side of interview panels, I’m more than aware how we all naturally go for what we’re comfortable with and what we’ve seen before. People seem to think that there is a ‘correct’ and ‘best’ candidate who would miss out because of affirmative action, when in reality every qualified person brings something different to a job and the winner is usually the person who puts on the best show and is most like that selection panel.
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Yes! Though, I believe calling it Positive Discrimination kind of sets it up for attack or negative reactions. 😉
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Well, 12% isn’t it. And I don’t know where you are, but here in the states, most teachers (k-12) are women (by far), but most administrators are men. That can ONLY be explained by discrimination and Glass Ceilings.
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How about men prefer the task of administration and women prefer the task of teaching. That is a very good explination
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I might go a step further. Women are the answer to many of the worlds problems – I’m thinking poverty and social ills here. So, why go for equality? More is better.
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Well, I didn’t want to say that out loud …
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Then I’m glad I did 🙂
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“Blame women for growing up in a society that objectifies them and for being dumb enough to join in.” Violet, what about those women who enjoy being sexually alluring, but in a playful way and on their own terms? Is that self-objectifying or empowering? I would say it’s the latter.
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Another one of my obscure comments that I realise only I understood. One of the enlightened gentlemen I was berating in this post referred to a woman as ‘dumb’ for being in low quality men’s magazines. It’s not my opinion, just a feeble attempt to mock his. However, it’s an interesting point you raise, and I don’t really have an answer. I do think women (and people in general) have a responsibility to other women, and participating in an industry that sexually objectifies women with ultimately damaging results for society in general, is best avoided.
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Jim, if you meet a woman who says she is totally fine with being a sex object, then you’d better try and find out what else she’ll lie about. (I’m generalizing here)
“Friends with Benefits” here in the U.S. is doing a number on young girls. And it does nothing for the boys, either. Strange how men (and some women) claim one thing for themselves, but if they have daughters they become fierce guardians of their daughters’ innocence.
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