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Komi Afetse
Instructor: Chip Douglas
UWRT- 1102
Sepember,13, 2016
The Place of Women in The Society
Gender inequality is a notion that has always been the subject of a lot of controversy in
society. It is common to hear women say: this is inequality. This is because I am a woman.
The question then is: what is inequality? As stated by the website merriam-webster.com,
inequality is: an unfair situation in which some people have more rights or better opportunities
than other people. In this perspective, women and men have never been equals. In point of fact,
women have always been marginalized in favor of men. Since antiquity until very recently
(second half of the twentieth century), women had always been inferior to men. Their place was
limited to their home, and their only occupations were: the household maintenance and the
education of children. They had to obey their fathers and their husbands. However, from the
nineteenth century, women started to fight for their rights. They fought for gender equality.
Today, women consider that they are equals to men; but did the stereotypes of the past
completely disappear? Are women and men really equal in our current society? What could be
the impact on society if the injustices against women disappear completely? The inequalities
between women and men have not completely disappeared. These inequalities are noticed in
various fields such as: social, economic and professional fields.
Socially, the emancipation of women is only a vague illusion. The gender inequality still
persists. Indeed, in some parts of the world, women are still being persecuted and reduced to
remain slaves of their gender as in the past. They cannot go against the will of their husbands or

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their families. They are treated as objects and are often subject to harsh, barbaric, and terrible
practices. For instance, honor Killing is a punitive murder, committed by members of a family
against a female member of their family whom the family and/or wider community believes to
have brought dishonor upon the family. A woman is usually targeted for: refusing an arranged
marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce (even from an abusive husband),
or committing adultery or fornication. As of 2004, honor killings have occurred within parts of
various countries, such as Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany,
India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Uganda, United Kingdom and the
United States(Rushfan). Also, women and girls are 80 percent of the estimated 800,000 people
trafficked across national borders annually, with the majority (79 percent) trafficked for sexual
exploitation. Within countries, many more women and girls are trafficked, often for purposes of
sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.
In addition, some families in the world prefer to have boys rather than girls. These
families consider that boys are more useful than girls. Thus, women are forced to abort their
unborn child as soon as it is a girl. This practice has increased in countries where family planning
policy has been implemented. In fact, according to the website Wikipedia.org: Sex-selective
abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based upon the predicted sex of the infant.
The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common in areas where cultural norms value
male children over female children, especially in parts of East Asia and South Asia(particularly
in countries such as People's Republic of China, India and Pakistan), as well as in the Caucasus,
and Southeast Europe. This reality is clearly shown by Kristen Walker Hatten in her article: in
parts of Asia especially India and China baby girls are undesirable, even unacceptable. In
China, a one-child policy, enforced by the state with forced sterilizations and abortions,

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exacerbates gendercide, leading some parents to take matters into their own hands. In the same
way, these inequalities between women and men are also present in the economic and
professional fields.
The economic situation of women is to review, if not deplorable. The participation of
women in economic activities is very limited. They are the ones who suffer most from the lack of
employment. Hence, there is more unemployed women than men. As stated by the website
unwomen.org, in 2013, the male employment-to-population ratio stood at 72.2 per cent, while
the ratio for females was 47.1 per cent. Besides the unemployment, women are often exploited.
To say this in another way, the salary of men is often higher than that of women. Globally,
women are paid less than men. In the words of Robert J. Samuelson, writer for the Washington
post, women earn only 79 percent of mens average hourly wages. Not only that, women are
often unprotected by labor laws. As an illustration, according to the website unwomen.org,
women were far more likely than men to be in vulnerable employment in East Asia (50.3 per
cent versus 42.3 per cent), South-East Asia and the Pacific (63.1 per cent versus 56 per cent),
South Asia (80.9 per cent versus 74.4 per cent), North Africa (54.7 per cent versus 30.2 per cent),
the Middle East (33.2 per cent versus 23.7 per cent) and Sub-Saharan Africa (nearly 85.5 per
cent versus 70.5 per cent).
Furthermore, globally women are poorer than men. In other words, they are those that are
most in need of funds. They do not have sufficient resources to meet basic needs like eating
properly (3 times daily), clothing, etc. As long as women are employed in precarious jobs, are
paid less, and spend more time to perform household tasks; they always suffer more poverty than
men. According to the website un.org, the majority of the 1.5 billion people living on 1 dollar a
day or less are women. In addition, the gap between women and men caught in the cycle of

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poverty has continued to widen in the past decade, a phenomenon commonly referred to as "the
feminization of poverty". Worldwide, women earn on average slightly more than 50 per cent of
what men earn. What could be the impact on society if the injustices against women disappear
completely?
Injustices against women really have a detrimental effect on the development of society.
In another way, if these injustices come to end, our society will enter in a great era of progress.
Indeed, all the areas would experience an important improvement. Women represent at least fifty
percent of the world population. The involvement of women as well as men in all activities,
would boost the economy enormously. This would result in the reduction of poverty and an
improvement living conditions. Gender equality is a way to get a good way of living. Gender
equality is good for a countrys growth. Gender equality is also good for companies. These
companies have a higher rate of productivity. To sum up, gender equality is not a zero-sum
game but a win-win. (Kimmel).
Are two people so different because they are not of the same sex? No, not at all. Aside
from the physical and some biological attributes, man and woman are the same. Therefore,
women and men are equal. However, the sad reality is that women have always suffered terrible
injustices and have long been considered inferior to men. Nowadays, things seem to have highly
evolved, but women still face many injustices in several fields (social, economic, and
professional). Gender equality is not yet completed. As 2014, 143 countries have guaranteed
equality between men and women in their constitutions but 52 have not yet to take this step.
(un.org/sustainabledevelopment). Women have as much as capacity as men. If the potential of
women was used at one hundred percent, the society will undergo great and remarkable changes.
In other words, gender equality will boost all sectors of the society. In this way, everyone must

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do their part to achieve gender equality. All these gender stereotypes of women have to be
eliminated. In fact, gender equality is a benefit not only for women, but for everyone in the
society.

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Works cited.
Facts and Figures: Economic Empowerment. unwomen.org. UN Women. Web.14 September
2016.
Fast Facts: statistics on violence against women and girls. endvawnow.org. Luccaco. Web. 14
September 2016.
Hatten, Kristen walker. 200 Million Girls Killed in China, Where Are the Feminists?
lifenews.com. LifeNews.com, November 2, 2012. Web. 14 September 2016.
Rushfan. 7 Terrible Abuses Suffered by Women Around the World. listverse.com. 2007-2016
Listverse Ltd, 10 June 2008. Web. 14 September 2016.
Samuelson, Robert J. What's the Real Gender Pay Gap? washingtonpost.com. 1996-2016 The
Washington Post, 24 April 2016. Web. 14 September 2016.
Sex-Selective Abortion. wikipedia.org. Wikimedia foundation, Inc. Web. 14 September 2016.
The Feminization of Poverty. un.org. 1997-2007 United Nations. Web. 14 September 2016.