Analysis Of Gender Equality

Today I am going to be speaking about gender equality. Often in society we see that many men are seen to have a higher status than women at home, in a workplace and in the community. I believe that gender equality is more than just giving women the same opportunities as men, to achieve gender equality, women need to have rights to their own body, they need to be able to feel safe walking alone at night and they need to feel like they can do things that they enjoy doing without being judged. Gender equality is a problem for men as well, plenty of men have to deal with the struggles of trying to be the way society thinks a man should be, most men are afraid to speak up about how they are feeling because it could be considered weak.

Abuse towards women is a big effect of gender inequality, it can be physical, social, emotional, sexual, mental or financial. 35% of women alive right now have experienced some form of sexual or physical abuse and women between the ages of 15 and 44 are more likely to experience rape or domestic violence than they are to experience a motor accident or cancer. Alcohol can have an effect on abuse as it causes increased aggression, 60% of women that experienced domestic abuse reported that the person had been drinking beforehand. Alcohol can also become a problem for women as those that have been abused are 15 times more likely to develop an alcohol problem. Women who have been abused are also more likely to acquire a mental health issue such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, or an eating disorder.

Gender inequality has also affected girls’ education rights, in most countries education is no longer a problem for girls but in some places like Kenya and South Africa, education is still a problem for young girls. Despite laws being made all around the world women in those countries are still struggling to access a higher education. The biggest gaps in equality in education happen in conflict zones which are places where there is a war. Examples of this are in Niger where 4 out of 5 women are illiterate and South Sudan where three quarters of girls don’t even make it to primary school. Even in some countries where girls are allowed to go to school there is one teacher for every 80 students. even if the gap is getting much smaller, in places like Afghanistan, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, boys are still lots more likely to finish school than girls.

Occupational Gender Inequality is when people are judged based on their gender despite their other qualities. On average, women have a lower socioeconomic status than men, this is likely because of the wage gap between genders and the fact that it generally takes longer for women to get higher up in jobs than it does for men. The full time weekly earning for women are 13.9% less than men and superannuation balances for women at retirement are 20.5% lower than men. Women also experience personal discrimination from their male counterparts with sexist comments, less opportunities at work and assault.

In conclusion, gender equality has come a long way in the last 100 years but there are still many gaps where women don’t get the same opportunities as men, where women get the ability to control their own lives taken away from them and where men are expected to act a certain way because of social norms. I believe that if everyone works together as a nation we can all become completely equal, thank you for listening.