Issue of Gender Inequality From a Global Perspective - Essay Example

Again, the focus of how the media covers the improvement of women will be aimed at presenting those 'general' variables that apply across all cultures, and education will be presented as one of the most important ways toward female emancipation. Finally, and in keeping with the economic focus, the solution-driven approach will be examined from the US perspective over and against that of the rest of the world. Given that both health care and education are institutions that have had a very measurable positive impact, the question emerges as to whether these should be state or private.

In terms of economics, the problems and the solutions will be examined with a particular central focus on fiscally driven themes. However much there is a lot of legislation and many institutions that function to challenge discrimination in the US, discrimination is nonetheless a problem. From the beginning of US history, and to the present time, there has been marked progress toward creating the institutions and legislation that promotes equality across social classes, race or visible minority barriers, barriers created by disabilities, and finally, the issue which will be the focus of the following analysis, namely, discrimination on the basis of gender.

This said progress toward gender inequality has been a long struggle. In the twentieth century, for example, the right to vote for women was established in 1919 or well after the right to vote was given to men. Further, the most significant acts or legislation for promoting equality were really only passed in the 1960s. Among these, it has to be maintained that the Equal Pay or Equality Act rank as the most significant. While the legislative or formal area of breaking down discrimination has taken some time, the effects of greater equality are arguably only a fairly recent phenomenon.

For instance, in the US at the moment, in over two-thirds of all households, women are in the workforce [Bennett and Ellison, 2010]. Further, women are outranking men in education at significant levels, and represent 71% of all valedictorians [Bennett and Ellison, 2010]. However, while there is progress by so many social indicators, they remain largely outsiders at the top of the work chain, so to speak. Moreover, they are still earning less than men for equivalent which means that there is a persisting wage gap in spite of a lot of the progress that has been noted in brief: “Women in the U.S. may be working more, and in greater numbers, but women are still just 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, and make 77 cents on the dollar” [Bennett and Ellison, 2010].

It cannot be stressed enough that the wage gap for present purposes, has to be understood within some of the perimeters of economics. As a gap measurable or quantifiable, it follows that a tax revenue base is affected as just a single instance where impacts are made well beyond the immediate or surface layer. It cannot be said enough that both the wage gap and the impact of fewer women earning the top salaried jobs in the Fortune 500 boardrooms are economic at least as much as moral issues.