Why we need equality based society: Gender perspective

Monday, 18 March 2013 0 comments

 “Sex is the biological difference between men and women; and gender is the social relationship between men and women which is socially constructed and in which women are systematically subordinated. Gender differences are constructed by ideological, historical, religious, economic and cultural determinants (Moser 1993). The social construction of gender based on the biological factors of male and female are taken into consideration, while acknowledging that gender, as opposed to sex is largely a social construction. Further, sex refers to the biological attributes of being male or female. Gender refers to the socially constructed attributes of being male or female, or of femininity and masculinity. The socially entrusted roles as men and women are treated unequally on the basis of performing their duties within the structured norms and values of culture, religion, social class, caste, ethnicity, etc.

When processing the above structured layers in the society, it is well evident that these social constructions are negatively affected the world socio economic development and the individual personalities of men and women. Sex differences uncover the understanding that the social construction of differences between men and women is the basis on which rules, resources, responsibilities, power and rights are distributed or allocated between women and men in society resulting in discrimination.
Hence discrimination is socially constructed and is based on social rules or norms. The social rules or norms are “ways of doing things” or patterns that become routine over of period of time. These patterns are socially legitimized that they become reproduced with economy, because of the intricate ways in which personality and roles are intertwined. Four main institutions in society combine their practice and reinforce the ideology of the social construction of gender. These institutions are, The family or household, The market or economy, The community or religion, culture, race, ethnicity, The state or education, employment, health, etc.

For example, a social rule or norm is that men are breadwinners and women are home makers or that men are leaders and decision makers and women are followers and implementers of decision. In accordance with the rules, starting from the household, women are expected to be obedient, submissive and fulfill household responsibilities while remaining in the background. None of the institutions provide resources to them- economic or social-which are seen from the perspective of the social construction of gender-as irrelevant for them. This has serious consequence for women.

Gender is learned through a process of socialization and through the culture of the particular society concerned. In many cultures boys are encouraged in the acts considered to display male traits and girls vice versa through the toy given to children (guns for boys and dolls for girls). The kind of discipline meted out from their childhood. Children learn their gender from birth. They learn how they should behave in order to be perceived by others, and themselves, as either masculine or feminine, throughout their life this is reinforced by parents, teachers, peers, their culture and society.
The division of labors between the sexes is best explained by gender, but reproduction is based on a universal biological difference between men and women. Societies use this as a basis for allotting other tasks. These tasks are allotted according to convenience and precedents in the particular culture and determine masculine and feminine roles.

Prof. George Murdock has surveyed the data for 224 societies (mostly preliterate) and shows that the tendency to segregate economic activities in one way or another according to sex is strong. Taking a list of 46 different activities, he suggests that some are more often masculine than feminine, and vice versa. For example, lumbering is an exclusively masculine activity in 104 of his societies and exclusively feminine in 6; cooking is exclusively  feminine in 158 and exclusively masculine in 5 hunting, fishing, weapon making, boat building and mining tend to be masculine, while grinding grain and carrying water tend to be feminine. Activities that are less consistently allotted to one sex include preparing the soil, planting, tending and harvesting the crops, ’burden bearing’ and body mutilation. (Oakley, 1972)

Women’s activities are spread over various sectors of society, productive as well as reproductive. Women’s role in biological reproduction and the bearing and nursing of babies is self-evident. It is a false stereotype, however, that because it is “ the biological nature” of women to bear children it is a natural ‘biological’ outcome for their lifetimes women should be obliged to do all the housekeeping and domestic activities. But the workload connected with the domestic activities which maintain or ‘reproduce’ daily life are mainly allocated to women. While the more extroverted and distant income-generating activities are allocated to men. This distribution of labor and of the rights to dispose of the income which results from that labour, is clearly of a social and not a biological nature (Ostergaard, 1972). Even in child-rearing men play a substantial role in some societies. As societies become more complex, the roles played by men and women are not only determined by culture, but by socio-political and economic factors. (Brett, 1991)

The roles that women play are different in any given society, and their situation is determined by the legislation, religious norms, economic status or class, cultural values, ethnicity and types of productive activity of the country, community and house hold.

Women are usually responsible for domestic work; the care of children, family health, cooking and providing food and other household services. In most societies they also play a major role in the productive activities of the family; in forming, paid domestic labour, services, industries and income- generating activities. In some societies they also have clear community roles. In each of these areas reproduction, production and the community-women have often been adversely affected by the development process. There is a wide gap between women’s high, yet unrecognized, economic participation and their low political and social power, and development strategies have usually taken the needs of the most vocal and political active as their starting point. 

Women tend to be negatively affected by the development process because women’s labor is less mobile than men’s. According to Collier (1994) four distinct processes account for why women face differential constraints upon their economic activities.  The first process is discrimination in labor and credit markets. The second concerns the replication of gender role models; economic opportunities initially taken up by men are diffused over a male population by a mechanism that does not transmit them to the female population. The third process is the result of asymmetric rights and obligations of men and women in the household. The fourth is reproduction, which makes extra demands on the time and health of women, adding to their inflexibility. As a consequence, women are usually active in those sectors which are less subject to these constraints.

The issues of gender are different from culture to culture. One approach is to design projects and programs to make life ‘easier’ for women and help them in their gender tasks. In most low-income household, “ women’s’ s work” includes not only reproductive work (the child bearing and rearing responsibilities) required to guarantee the maintenance and reproduction of the labor force but also productive work, often as secondary income earns. In addition, women are involved in community managing work undertaken at a local community level in both urban and rural contexts. Because the triple role of women, unlike men, are severely constrained by the burden of simultaneously balancing these roles of reproductive, productive, and community managing work is ignored. In addition, only productive work is recognized as work. Reproductive and community managing work are both seen as ‘natural’ and so are not valued. This has serious consequences for women. It means that most, if not all, of the work that they do is made invisible and fails to be rewarded. In contrast, most men’s work is valued, either directly through economic reward or indirectly through status and political power. (Moser, 1993)

“Women compose one half of the world’s population and the world’s population and perform two thirds of the world’s work hours, yet they are everywhere poorer in resources and poorly represented in positions of decision making (and) power” (Peterson and Runyan 1993).  False stereotypes are pitfalls for thought and lead to irrational actions. It is an ironic consequence of the “determinism” that accompanies the belief in ‘the biological nature of women’ that women are often treated as a minority group in spite of the fact that they constitute more than half of the world’s population phrases like “This is intended for women, youth and other special groups” or for women, children and handicapped”’ have been seen too often in public documents. In this way being female is equated with suffering from an irreversible handicap, women are subordinated or marginalized ‘for biological reasons’. Such biases have not only dominated public opinion, until fairly recently they have also influenced social scientists to see sex differences us being beyond the scope of social analysis and have thus obstructed their understanding of the social and historical roots of gender relations.

We need to unpack the interconnectedness of discriminations and the way various social institutions build their discriminatory practice on the same social rule. We need to see the boundaries within which women operate and the manner in which the discrimination in one sphere lays down the foundation for continuing inequalities in all other areas .Officially, these rights in isolation seem varied and single such as the right to fair and equal remuneration, to political participation or the right to mobility, but their denial has the same source despite being played out in different arenas. The unofficial picture clearly illustrate the manner in which all the sites of discrimination interact and influence each other to keep women in a disadvantaged position with a resultant loss of rights and power.

We need to unpack the inter-linkages between discrimination against women and the structural basis of inequality by looking at the way social rules are structured in different institutions of society. These are important to consider because gender relations are present in all of these institutions, and they are fundamentally interlinked. Institutions do not function as isolated units of society but instead draw on the rules and structured within the household and society. Assumptions that the household, community institutions, the market and the state are all independent of each other to the extent of which gender difference are constructed and reproduced.

The model of social organization used in law and policy is often based on the separation of these different institutions. This has led to the constant demarcation of spheres of activity into the public and the private. The private sphere is seen to be the domain of women, while the public sphere that of men. The construction of gender roles within each of these institutions becomes extended to the organization of women’s activities.  Eg; the fact that women’s reproductive functions are carried out within the sanction or legitimacy of the household is further extended to include all functions relating to child rearing to the same institution.

Looking at the ways in which institutions reproduce inequality will thus have serious implications for the way demand rights. It becomes apparent that in the contemporary context, rights are being built upon existing inequalities or difference and are not aimed at challenging them.
It is well known fact that women are generally worse off than men in most countries, especially in the Third World. In addition to their income generating activities, women’s household duties include caring for the children, the sick and elderly, house maintenance, preparing food, and fetching firewood and water. Yet because of women’s more limited access to education and other opportunities, their productivity relative to their potential remains low. Improving women’s productivity can contribute to both economic growth, efficiency and poverty reduction.

Investing in women with respect to education, health, family planning, access to land, etc, not only directly reduces poverty, but also leads to higher productivity and a more efficient use of resources. It often produces significant social gains; lower fertility, better household nutrition, and reduce infant, child and maternal mortality. This payoff notwithstanding the gender gap remains substantial. In many countries Girls school enrolment rates lag behind those of boys. Women’s lives expectancies are often lower the men’s due to discrimination in food intake, despite natural advantage at birth. Parents in developing countries are less likely to send their sons; educational costs are higher for girls than boys, and the expected benefits are lower. As a result, women are at a disadvantage in the labour market, giving rise to a vicious circle of low earnings and low investment in schooling. Women in developing countries also often lack access to family planning services, which in combination with low education can be lethal, as high maternal mortality rates show.

Lack of access to credit for female entrepreneurs limits the profitability and growth of their enterprises. Limited education and cultural barriers may restrict women’s contact with institutions that offer financial services. Also collateral requirements play an important roles, as female rights to property are often more restricted than men’s. The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has shown that group lending car bring down successfully transaction costs and default risks.

The need to balance home and market responsibilities is a major constraint on women’s earning, productivity and human capital accumulation. The lack of affordable child care forces put women into jobs with flexible hours and locations but also lower earnings, limited mobility and lower opportunities for skills development.

According to the World Bank (1994), comparison of country-specific evidence suggests that there are five priority areas where action is needed; education, health care, wage labour, agriculture and financial services. Public policies in these filed should work in order to compensate for market failures. These policies should equalize opportunities between women and men and redirect resources to those investments with the highest social returns, that is the returns to society as a whole.

Private returns for investment in education and health care are more or less the same for men and women. Social returns, however, are much higher for women than for men. This is because of the strong correlation between women’s education, health, nutritional status and fertility levels on the one hand and productivity of future generations on the other hand.

And these correlations are even stronger when women have control over the ways in which resources are allocated within the household. The World Bank has broadened its policy framework, which earlier treated women as a special target group, to incorporate the ways in which the relations between men and women constrain growth and poverty reduction. This focus is called the “gender and development” approach. Over the past decades considerable progress has been made in reducing gender gaps in terms of school enrolment rates, length of female education and labour force participation.

Nevertheless, in many important areas much still has to be done. The most important ones are mortality rates, wage rates and decision making, which all are areas where women face considerable disadvantages compared with men. Without denying the above-mentioned more attention should be paid to understanding the economy as a gendered structure.  In various fields, a distinction between a paid and an unpaid economy, where in the latter most of the work which includes activities as taking care of children, fetching fuel wood, preparing food, etc, is being done by women. This kind of work, however, is not registered like wage labour and thus often does not officially exist.

Improving female well being therefore includes more than removing anti-female discrimination. It also involves recognizing the economy as a gendered structured, where gender is always present even of women are not. Report on economic situation of developing countries often ignore links between patterns of gender equality and the achievement of sustainable economic growth and human development Gender inequality is usually results of development efforts and an obstacle to achieving development. 

Most development agencies are simultaneously trying to achieve several aims at the same time, such as poverty alleviation, preservation of the environment, economic growth macro-economic stability and improvement of the position of women. These variables are connected to each other, both in a negative and positive manner.

Even if positive links exist, the development agent still has to decide where to put its money, as there may be more than one way to simultaneously improve women’s well-being and other development indicators. Despite continues attempts to eradicate the social menace of gender discrimination; it is still wide spread in every region of the world.

Gender equality has been recognized as pivotal to realization of the development agenda, which is impossible to achieve without the complete participation all members of the society. It has been acknowledged within the Millennium development goals.

Former Secretary General of the United Nations in a message to the UNICEF report on the “state of children 2007” stated that “in 27 years since the adoption of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, much has been done to advance the progress of women, but we have fallen for short of what we need to achieve. Until there is gender equality, there can be no sustainable development. It is impossible to realize our goals while discrimination against the half of the humanity”. Gender can be understood negatively affect world social economic development and the individual personalities of men and women.

Moser, C. O.N. 1993. Gender Planning and Development. London: Routledge.
Oakley, A.1974. The Sociology of Housework. London: Martin Robertson.
Ostergaard, Lise. 1992. Gender, Gender and Development – A practical Guide.
Peterson,U.S. and Runyan, A.S. 1993. Global Gender Issues. Sanfrancisco: Westview press.
UNICEF  .2007.  State of Children.

(This was first published as a academic paper during the first Indian Social Work Congress, 2013, Delhi)


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