Shame of Women Still Being Disadvantaged - Research Paper Example

?First Lecturer’s The Shame of Women Still Being Widely Disadvantaged This Day and Age One of the greatesttragedies of the twenty first century is the fact that women still face disadvantages. These disadvantages have not been addressed, talked about nor publicly discussed in any meaningful way. Racial rights, children’s rights, minority rights, basic human rights have all been and/or are in the process of being addressed and alleviated in every part of the world, yet the situation of women, be it in the family, the society at large, employment, education – literally in every sphere of the man endeavor – has yet to be conclusively and effectively analyzed and addressed, even in the developed countries. Given that women make up over a half of the human population and give their huge and increasing contributions to every sector of the development the trampling on their rights is not only a great shame, but an unfortunate indictment of the civilized society throughout the world. The subjugation of women’s rights begins right at home. Women are expected to take the lead in taking care of children at home. They are the ones who have to give up their career for at least a significant amount of time in order to ensure the well-being of their new-born babies. Women bear the brunt of child-bearing, an experience still fraught with significant health dangers, especially in the under-developed a countries where a large number of women lose their lives during the birth process. In the family upbringing is meant to be a shared duty for both parents, a lot of the times the woman is still expected to be the one to give up her time and career prospects in order to raise the children. In marriages, women also bear the brunt of domestic violence; in over 90% of cases reported the women are the victims. In the UK, for instance, one in 4 women aged 16-59 have experienced domestic abuse and 50% of these have also been raped (Women's Health& Equality Consortium 3). In cases of single mothers, women end up playing the role of both mother and father despite the fact that the conception of the child is a shared process. In education too women are at a disadvantage, especially in the developing and underdeveloped world where cultural attitudes and poverty dictate that the education of the girl-child is given less of a priority than that of the boy child. The common perception is that educating the girl only ends up benefitting the family where she will end up getting married into.This means that when a family has to prioritize who gets a chance for education, the girl child is always disadvantaged. In the lower basic education levels, thus, even though the developed countries have managed to more or less equalize the schooling of girls and boys, this is not the case in the majority of the rest of the world. A large proportion of women in Africa, Asia, and even the Eastern European states are still greatly disadvantaged when it comes to educational opportunities. When the girls find their way to school, they are still discriminated against when it comes to certain courses of studies. In many countries there are still beliefs that women are somehow not as proficient as men in such fields as sciences, architecture, medicine, engineering, math, and other “brain taxing” studies which leads to stereotyping of the kinds of courses that women end up taking at school. At the high end of the education ladder too, women still find a glass ceiling when it comes to postgraduate and doctoral studies. In American Universities, for example, despite the fact that 53% of the students are women, 72% of the faculty are men, many of them in tenured positions while the women mostly have untenured or part time positions (Penn State University). The workplace is the one place where women are still very disadvantaged in both the developed and the underdeveloped world. Women face disadvantages and discrimination in getting senior and management jobs, they never get equal pay for equal work with their male counterparts, and in many cases they have to put up with an unfriendly and unfair environment at work. In the United States, women still earn at best 80% of what men earn in whatever position they work in, especially in the senior jobs, if they get there since even promotions and job advancement opportunities are heavily weighed against women. If we look at the top organizations, the ones that make the Forbes 500 list, women members of boards or at the highest positions in corporations comprise only 14-16%. In the workplace women face discrimination in their employment when they have to take time off due to pregnancy and paying attention to family matters and those affecting their children. In many organizations married women are discriminated against due to the fact that they may need time off not only to have children, but also to attend their children as and when needed. This discrimination also affects their opportunities for promotion and going up the corporate ladder. Men never have to decide whether to have a career or have a family – they can and do have it all – yet women who try to have both a career and a family life find the odds stacked against them, and they have to either take time off from their career and raise the children or to try to cling on to their career and have to leave their children at daycare all the time and not get enough quality time with their families. When it comes to the kind of work environment, not even the White House is immune from being a hostile work environment for women. According to a former White House staffer, the White House is such a “boys club” that women feel outmaneuvered and outnumbered in all the decisions made – and it is no different in other public and private sector organizations where women have to put up with archaic and very women unfriendly workplaces (Smith). Sexual harassment at work also targets women much more than it does men as well as workplace bullying and intimidation. If we look at politics, women, despite being 51% of the population, are again greatly outnumbered by men, in all top political positions. The Unites States has had 44 presidents and there have been zero women presidents. Currently only five women are governors in the United States because of the hold that men have on political power (Felsenthal). This year 20 is the highest number of female senators that have ever been in the US. In its 220 year history, the US Supreme Court has had only four women as justices of the court. Three of them are serving at the moment. This is the highest court in the land, the epitome of fairness to all and sundry, and women are still a minority in it – even this day and age. These are the statistics data from the United States, a developed country with supposedly has fair practices and policies that favor women. In the rest of the world and especially in the developing nations of Asia and Africa, women are even more disadvantaged. The other area in which women are still disadvantaged in a great way is health issues. Many women’s health issues, including their reproductive health and women’s health issues are discussed, determined, and decided upon by men. Men make up a majority of gynecologists and medical doctors, even in the developed world. Policies on reproductive health, abortion, contraception, and other issues that cover women are set by and presided over by men. Women are, thus, disadvantaged throughout their health lives and have to have all the important health care policies set, implemented and determined by men. Women’s reproductive and sexual health issues are routinely taken care of by men, never mind that they lack the capacity to understand these issues the way a woman would. Despite the fact that many women would rather have their health examinations done by women who understand their bodies more and can empathize with their feelings and observations during such examinations, that is not always the case. It is especially more so in the minority populations and cultures where there are many hindrances to women patients opening up to male health practitioners (Women's Health& Equality Consortium 4). Women are more likely than men to have an inadequate health insurance coverage since they are also more likely to be in temporary or part-time employment. Statistics show that as many as seven out of ten women are uninsured or under-insured, never mind that because of their physiological nature; women have more healthcare needs than men. In the majority of the states, women’s insurance costs are a lot more than for men, meaning that it is legal to discriminate against women when it comes to healthcare insurance coverage. In the developing countries, women’s health is even more tenuous with unacceptably high maternal deaths, a lack of access to reproductive and sexual health services as well as contraception. In a lot of these countries women do not have any access to birth control, yet they are often in the societies where sexual activity starts at such a tender age that a woman has to give up her career and education because of an unwanted and unplanned pregnancy. Women are still disadvantaged further when it comes to justice and the criminal justice system. A lot of the gender-based criminal offences are usually against women, a lot of the times because of the physical weakness or a lack of strength to fight off male attackers. The same is true of most sexual crimes as well, where in 95% of the cases the victims are women. In some states the judicial process following such attacks is such that many victims of crimes like rape undergo the psychological trauma of the rape again all over while in court where they have to endure testifying and being questioned in a courtroom full of men and sometimes under the full glare of journalists’ cameras. Prostitution laws in many states are also biased against women, focusing on those trying to make a living by selling their bodies, but letting the patrons get away scot free. The treatment of women arrested for such offences can also be very traumatizing for the women, yet another area of disadvantage and unfairness. In certain instances, practices such as strip searches are particularly traumatic for women and girls who are arrested (ACLU). Women have come a long way in many areas, but unfortunately they still have a long way to go in many areas where they have to put up with disadvantages and discrimination that is in many cases sanctioned by the society, and for which they are still made to suffer. The sad thing is that no concerted effort is being made to ensure that these remaining bastions of the unfair treatment of women are effectively dealt with once and for all for the women to enjoy the equal rights that keep evading them. Works Cited ACLU. Women and the Criminal Justice System. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 July 2013. . Felsenthal, Carol. "Why Are There So Few Female Governors?" ChicagoMag.com 5 Mar. 2013. Web. 1 July 2013. . Penn State University.Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women? N.p., n.d. Web. 1 July 2013. . Smith, Ben. "The White House 'a Hostile Workplace' to Women."Politico 17 Sept. 2011. Web. 1 July 2013. . Women's Health & Equality Consortium. ‘Why Women’s Health?’ N.p., n.d. Web. 1 July 2013. . Read More