Women's Battle for Representation

By Claudia Simone Ene

For hundreds of years women have fought for equality in society and they have broken boundaries with hard work and determination, changing mindsets, beliefs and laws for a better future all around the world. There have been many ladies in history who influenced today’s place of women in society. Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Frida Kahlo, Simone de Beauvoir, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marie Curie, Dolores Huerta, Audre Lorde, Malala Yousafzai are only a few female names who have been pioneers for women and have made changes during the time.

Gender equality- an unfinished problem

In present, according to United Nations, women and girls represent half of the world’s population and so gender equality has become more than a fundamental human right. Gender equality is needed for peaceful societies, but also for a stimulating economy and productivity all around the world.

Even if, the role of women has been recognised in today’s society, unfortunately, there is still a long way to go to achieve full equality of rights and opportunities between men and women. This problem exists everywhere in the world with impact in different communities. Nowadays, 143 out of 195 countries guarantee equality between women and men in their constitutions starting 2014, however, discrimination against women persists through different areas.

Though in many places, offering access to education and more opportunities for women is a normal right, there is still a great deal of social resistance in many regions of the world. For example, in less developed countries, women are still fighting for basic human rights, being forced to accept and obey to stereotyped roles that existed many years ago. Some of the countries where the gender equality is still irregular are Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Chad, Iran. In these places not only, that women are still fighting for a better role in society, but they don’t have access to education and therefor, their roles and opportunities are limited, most of them having the position of housewives.

Furthermore, in the tribal communities, women nowadays face the hardest conditions and are strictly expected to play ancient women roles. As many tribes are refusing to integrate into modern society, they are respecting old cultures and obeying to extreme rules. Unfortunately, genital mutilation and body modification for beauty are still popular in the tribal communities. Women from those parts of the world are lacking access to education and the power to speak their own voice and change something for their well-being.

As for the other side of the situation, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden have made progress towards gender parity providing economic participation and opportunity, education, health and political empowerment for women. In highly developed societies, women have the right to vote, drive and the freedom to access any level of education or job position. More than this, they can lead nations and have shown a huge ability to have different jobs as sport players, astronauts, doctors, teachers, painters and all that was believed in that past as being suitable only for men.

Being a woman in today’s society is better than it was in the last decades, but it is still challenging

With all the rights, being a woman in today’s society is still challenging. Even if many women are taking advantage of their right and they are working, they are often still worse paid than men. In the case of powerful positions, women find it very difficult to handle the sexist behaviour from men and still the number of women accounted for board members is low to about 20% in the EU. Globally is yet hard for women to access parliamentarians’ jobs and the lack of both sides’ voices can be observed in every society. A study taken in 2013 have shown that the cost of women not being engaged in paid work is very big being estimated to $92bn a year because the system is failing to educate girls in the same standards as boys, so the whole economy of a country is losing out. If women and men had equality at work, it would help GDP increase in the US by 5% and Japan by 9%.

Little by little, woman in today’s society is starting to become more powerful, being more interested in education and important positions in society and the United Nation is one of the main supporters for a brighter future regarding the gender equality. Its global development work is focused on 17 Sustainable Development Goals which include women’s rights and empowerment.

In honour of women, several days such as the International Women’s Day, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women are dedicated to them and are celebrated everywhere in the world, recognising women’s achievements more than their political views, age, language, economic or cultural beliefs.

Sources:

1. Here are the top 10 countries in the world for gender equality. https://www.businessinsider.com/top-10-world-gender-equality-world-economic-forum-2019-12?r=US&IR=T

2. Gender Equality. https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/gender-equality/

3. Women’s roles in different parts of the world. https://www.insureandgo.com.au/travel-hub/women-roles-different-parts-world.jsp

4. Women in the world: An International Atlas. https://www.utc.edu/faculty/sarla-murgai/women-in-the-world.php

5. Women are better off today, but still far from being equal with men. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/sep/29/women-better-off-far-from-equal-men

6. Pinterest