Gender equality, equality between men and women, entails the concept that all human beings, both men and women, are free to develop their personal abilities and make choices without the limitations set by stereotypes, rigid gender roles and prejudices. Gender equality means that the different behaviour, aspirations and needs of women and men are considered, valued and favoured equally. It does not mean that women and men have to become the same, but that their rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female. Gender equity means fairness of treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs. This may include equal treatment or treatment that is different but which is considered equivalent in terms of rights, benefits, obligations and opportunities.
— ABC Of Women Worker's Rights And Gender Equality, ILO, 2000. p. 48.
Gender equality is the goal, while gender neutrality and gender equity are practices and ways of thinking that help in achieving the goal. Gender parity, which is used to measure gender balance in a given situation, can aid in achieving gender equality but is not the goal in and of itself. Gender equality is more than equal representation, it is strongly tied to
women's rights, and often requires policy changes. As of 2017, the global movement for gender equality has not incorporated the proposition of
genders besides women and men, or
gender identities outside of the gender binary.
UNICEF says gender equality "means that women and men, and girls and boys, enjoy the same rights, resources, opportunities and protections. It does not require that girls and boys, or women and men, be the same, or that they be treated exactly alike."
[1]
On a global scale, achieving gender equality also requires eliminating harmful practices against women and girls, including
sex trafficking,
femicide,
wartime sexual violence, and other
oppression tactics.
UNFPA stated that, "despite many international agreements affirming their human rights, women are still much more likely than men to be poor and illiterate. They have less access to property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence."
[2]
History
Shakers
The
Shakers, an evangelical group, which practiced segregation of the sexes and strict
celibacy, were early practitioners of gender equality. They branched off from a
Quaker community in the north-west of England before emigrating to America in 1774. In America, the head of the Shakers' central ministry in 1788, Joseph Meacham, had a revelation that the sexes should be equal. He then brought
Lucy Wright into the ministry as his female counterpart, and together they restructured the society to balance the rights of the sexes. Meacham and Wright established leadership teams where each elder, who dealt with the men's spiritual welfare, was partnered with an eldress, who did the same for women. Each deacon was partnered with a deaconess. Men had oversight of men; women had oversight of women. Women lived with women; men lived with men. In Shaker society, a woman did not have to be controlled or owned by any man. After Meacham's death in 1796, Wright became the head of the Shaker ministry until her death in 1821.
Shakers maintained the same pattern of gender-balanced leadership for more than 200 years. They also promoted equality by working together with other women's rights advocates. In 1859, Shaker Elder Frederick Evans stated their beliefs forcefully, writing that Shakers were "the first to disenthrall woman from the condition of vassalage to which all other religious systems (more or less) consign her, and to secure to her those just and equal rights with man that, by her similarity to him in organization and faculties, both God and nature would seem to demand".
[4] Evans and his counterpart, Eldress Antoinette Doolittle, joined women's rights advocates on speakers' platforms throughout the northeastern U.S. in the 1870s. A visitor to the Shakers wrote in 1875:
Each sex works in its own appropriate sphere of action, there being a proper subordination, deference and respect of the female to the male in his order,
and of the male to the female in her order [emphasis added], so that in any of these communities the zealous advocates of "women’s rights" may here find a practical realization of their ideal.
[5]
The Shakers were more than a radical religious sect on the fringes of American society; they put equality of the sexes into practice. It has been argued that they demonstrated that gender equality was achievable and how to achieve it.
[6]
In wider society, the movement towards gender equality began with the
suffrage movement in Western cultures in the late-19th century, which sought to allow women to vote and hold elected office. This period also witnessed significant changes to
women's property rights, particularly in relation to their marital status. (See for example,
Married Women's Property Act 1882.)
Post-war era
Since
World War II, the
women's liberation movement and
feminism have created a general movement towards recognition of
women's rights. The
United Nations and other international agencies have adopted several conventions which promote gender equality. These conventions have not been uniformly adopted by all countries, and include:
- The Convention against Discrimination in Education was adopted in 1960, and came into force in 1962 and 1968.
- The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. It has been described as an international bill of rights for women, which came into force on 3 September 1981.
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, a human rights declaration adopted by consensus at the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993 in Vienna, Austria. Women's rights are addressed at para 18.[7]
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993.
United Nations
It is the vision that men and women should be treated equally in
social, economic and all other aspects of society, and to not be
discriminated against on the basis of their gender.
[vi] Gender equality is one of the objectives of the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
[17] World bodies have defined gender equality in terms of
human rights, especially
women's rights, and
economic development.
[18][19] The United Nation's Millennium Development Goals Report states that their goal is to "achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women".Despite economic struggles in developing countries, the United Nations is still trying to promote gender equality, as well as help create a sustainable living environment is all its nations.Their goals also include giving women who work certain full-time jobs equal pay to the men with the same job.
Gender biases
There has been criticism from some feminists towards the political discourse and policies employed in order to achieve the above items of "progress" in gender equality, with critics arguing that these gender equality strategies are superficial, in that they do not seek to challenge social structures of male domination, and only aim at improving the situation of women within the societal framework of subordination of women to men,
[20] and that official public policies (such as state policies or international bodies policies) are questionable, as they are applied in a patriarchal context, and are directly or indirectly controlled by agents of a system which is for the most part male.
[21] One of the criticisms of the gender equality policies, in particular, those of the
European Union, is that they disproportionately focus on policies integrating women in public life, but do not seek to genuinely address the deep private sphere oppression.
[22]
A further criticism is that a focus on the situation of women in non-Western countries, while often ignoring the issues that exist in the West, is a form of
imperialism and of reinforcing Western moral superiority; and a way of "othering" of domestic violence, by presenting it as something specific to outsiders - the "violent others" - and not to the allegedly progressive Western cultures.
[23] These critics point out that women in Western countries often face similar problems, such as domestic violence and rape, as in other parts of the world.
[24] They also cite the fact that women faced de jure legal discrimination until just a few decades ago; for instance, in some Western countries such as Switzerland, Greece, Spain, and France, women obtained equal rights in
family law in the 1980s.
[vii][viii][ix][x] Another criticism is that there is a selective public discourse with regard to different types of oppression of women, with some forms of violence such as
honor killings (most common in certain geographic regions such as parts of Asia and North Africa) being frequently the object of public debate, while other forms of violence, such as the lenient punishment for
crimes of passionacross
Latin America, do not receive the same attention in the West.
[26][xi] It is also argued that the criticism of particular laws of many developing countries ignores the influence of
colonialism on those legal systems.
[xii] There has been controversy surrounding the concepts of
Westernization and
Europeanisation, due to their reminder of past colonialism,
[27] and also due to the fact that some Western countries, such as Switzerland, have been themselves been very slow to give women legal rights.
[28][29] There have also been objections to the way Western media presents women from various cultures creating stereotypes, such as that of 'submissive' Asian or Eastern European women, a stereotype closely connected to the
mail order brides industry.
[30] Such stereotypes are often blatantly untrue: for instance women in many Eastern European countries occupy a high professional status.
[31][32] Feminists in many developing countries have been strongly opposed to the idea that women in those countries need to be 'saved' by the West.
[33] There are questions on how exactly should gender equality be measured, and whether the West is indeed "best" at it: a study in 2010 found that among the top 20 countries on female graduates in the
science fields at university level most countries were countries that were considered internationally to score very low on the position of women's rights, with the top 3 being Iran, Saudi Arabia and Oman, and only 5 European countries made it to that top: Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Georgia and Greece.
[34]
There has been criticism that
international law,
international courts, and universal
gender neutral concepts of human rights are at best silent on many of the issues important to women and at worst male centered; considering the male person to be the default.
[35] Excessive
gender neutrality can worsen the situation of women, because the law
assumes women are in the same position as men, ignoring the biological fact that in the process of
reproduction and
pregnancy there is no 'equality', and that apart from physical differences there are socially constructed limitations which assign a socially and culturally inferior position to women - a situation which requires a specific approach to women's rights, not merely a gender neutral one.
[36] In a 1975 interview,
Simone de Beauvoir talked about the negative reactions towards women's rights from the left that was supposed to be progressive and support social change, and also expressed skepticism about mainstream international organizations.
[37]
Efforts to fight inequality
Gender equality is part of the national curriculum in Great Britain and many other European countries. By presidential decree, the Republic of Kazakhstan created a Strategy for Gender Equality 2006–2016 to chart the subsequent decade of gender equality efforts.
[39] Personal, Social and Health Education,
religious studies and
Language acquisition curricula tend to address gender equality issues as a very serious topic for discussion and analysis of its effect in society.
A large and growing body of research has shown how gender inequality undermines health and development. To overcome gender inequality the
United Nations Population Fund states that, "Women's empowerment and gender equality requires strategic interventions at all levels of programming and policy-making. These levels include reproductive health, economic empowerment, educational empowerment and political empowerment."
[40]
UNFPA says that "research has also demonstrated how working with men and boys as well as women and girls to promote gender equality contributes to achieving health and development outcomes."
[40]
Health and safety
Social constructs of
gender (that is, cultural ideals of socially acceptable
masculinity and
femininity) often have a negative effect on health. The World Health Organization cites the example of women not being allowed to travel alone outside the home (to go to the hospital), and women being prevented by cultural norms to ask their husbands to use a condom, in cultures which simultaneously encourage male promiscuity, as social norms that harm
women's health. Teenage boys suffering accidents due to social expectations of impressing their peers through
risk taking, and men dying at much higher rate from
lung cancer due to
smoking, in cultures which link smoking to masculinity, are cited by the WHO as examples of gender norms negatively affecting
men's health.
[41] The World Health Organization has also stated that there is a strong connection between gender socialization and transmission and lack of adequate management of
HIV/AIDS.
[42]
Violence against women
Violence against women is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women.
[xiii] This type of violence is gender-based, meaning that the acts of violence are committed against women expressly
because they are women, or as a result of patriarchal gender constructs.
[xiv] Violence and mistreatment of women in marriage has come to international attention during the past decades. This includes both violence committed inside marriage (
domestic violence) as well as violence related to marriage customs and traditions (such as
dowry,
bride price,
forced marriage and
child marriage).
According to some theories, violence against women is often caused by the acceptance of violence by various cultural groups as a means of conflict resolution within intimate relationships. Studies on
Intimate partner violence victimization among ethnic minorities in the United Studies have consistently revealed that immigrants are a high-risk group for intimate violence.
[43][44]
In countries where gang murders, armed kidnappings, civil unrest, and other similar acts are rare, the vast majority of murdered women are killed by partners/ex-partners.
[xv] By contrast, in countries with a high level of organized criminal activity and gang violence, murders of women are more likely to occur in a public sphere, often in a general climate of indifference and impunity.
[45] In addition, many countries do not have adequate comprehensive data collection on such murders, aggravating the problem.
[45]
In some parts of the world, various forms of violence against women are tolerated and accepted as parts of everyday life.
[xvi]
In most countries, it is only in more recent decades that domestic violence against women has received significant legal attention. The
Istanbul Conventionacknowledges the long tradition of European countries of ignoring this form of violence.
[xvii][xviii]
In some cultures, acts of violence against women are seen as crimes against the male 'owners' of the woman, such as husband, father or male relatives, rather the woman herself. This leads to practices where men inflict violence upon women in order to get revenge on male members of the women's family.
[46] Such practices include
payback rape, a form of rape specific to certain cultures, particularly the
Pacific Islands, which consists of the rape of a female, usually by a group of several males, as revenge for acts committed by members of her family, such as her father or brothers, with the rape being meant to humiliate the father or brothers, as punishment for their prior behavior towards the perpetrators.
[47]
Richard A. Posner writes that "Traditionally, rape was the offense of depriving a father or husband of a valuable asset — his wife's chastity or his daughter's virginity".
[48]Historically, rape was seen in many cultures (and is still seen today in some societies) as a crime against the
honor of the family, rather than against the self-determination of the woman. As a result, victims of rape may face violence, in extreme cases even honor killings, at the hands of their family members.
[49][50] Catharine MacKinnon argues that in male dominated societies, sexual intercourse is imposed on women in a coercive and unequal way, creating a continuum of victimization, where women have few positive sexual experiences.
[xix] Socialization within rigid gender constructs often creates an environment where sexual violence is common.
[xx]One of the challenges of dealing with sexual violence is that in many societies women are perceived as being readily available for sex, and men are seen as entitled to their bodies, until and unless women object.
[51][52][xxi]
