Gender Discrimination

The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty Gender Discrimination

Contributors: Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi Edited by: Mehmet Odekon Book Title: The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty Chapter Title: "Gender Discrimination" Pub. Date: 2015 Access Date: May 6, 2017 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc City: Thousand Oaks Print ISBN: 9781483345703 Online ISBN: 9781483345727 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483345727.n331 Print pages: 644-645 ©2015 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

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Individuals have likes and dislikes, and when one’s likes and dislikes are guided by the preferences of gender, then it is known as gender discrimination. Ezra Palmer says that discrimination means being rude and cruel to someone because he or she is different. Gender discrimination opposes the idea that the sexes should be treated equal and that this equality should be maintained by keeping the social orderliness appertaining to the values and traditions of cultures. Gender groups caught in the trap of poverty are often an object of discrimination. Gender discrimination further aggravates the lack of choices and opportunities for an individual, and it is a violation of human dignity. The gender disparities in economic power sharing have been a contributing factor to the poverty of women. Feminization of poverty describes the fact that women represent a disproportionate percentage of the poor across the globe. Disparity in education and employment opportunities for women have increased, women are less likely than men to hold paid and regular jobs, and women more often work in the informal economy, which provides little financial security, according to the United Nations. Timothy Macklem believes that value cannot be regarded relative to sexual identity, and argues for an account of gender discrimination that respects both sexual identity and human value. Gender discrimination emerges from denial: abilities one possesses, but people think one lacks; and disabilities one does not have, and people think one has. Women and girls receive less human capital investment than boys and men. J. M. Dowling and Chin-Fang Yap state that imbalance in gender is global, and they argue that global gender discrimination includes abortion, female infanticide, poor health care, overwork, and neglect. According to the Chronic Poverty Research Center, female literacy rates are 20 percent lower than male literacy rates in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and women are illiterate at the rate of over 70 percent in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. Maurizio Bussolo and R. E. De Hoyos study global gender disparities, and indicate that among adults living below the $2 a day poverty line, only 38 percent are women with a secondary or higher education. Roles Any form of discrimination is wrong if it obstructs someone from leading a successful life. Gender discrimination includes lower pay for the same work, lower levels of health and education, nutritional deficiencies, and lower caloric intake. If circumstances of one’s birth, sex, and social situations control one’s freedom of choice, and the assignment of a role obstructs an individual to be successful in their lives, it is discrimination. The focus of many such accounts of gender discrimination is oppression. Socially defined roles often curb personal choices to select employment, such as women being mothers and housewives, and that men are naturally incapable of nurturing children, limiting their choice of occupation. This domesticity further decides their occupations as teachers, secretaries, social workers, nurses, administrators, soldiers, air-hostesses, and leaders, and results in wage differentials and occupational segregation. Hilda Scott argues that childrearing and domestic labor activities receive no remuneration, and they are considered as zero productivity, and this occupational segregation results in sex discrimination and harassment. Any false conception on the decision of the right role for an individual generated by society is not only wrong, but also destructive to the lives of people. Every prejudiced behavior is discrimination, but not every prejudiced behavior is illegal. One effort to abolish prejudice was that of Susan B. Anthony in 1872, when she tried to vote, but it was not until 1899 that women won the right to vote in the United States. There are laws against gender discrimination across the globe, such as Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in

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the United States. There were other women’s efforts to eliminate gender discrimination in the history of the United States, including the Seneca Falls Convention (1848); passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920); introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment (1923); and reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment (1973). Implications The World Bank defends women’s rights through its Women in Development program, Maternal-Child Health Programs, and Education for All; its microlevel poverty programs, and antipoverty programs include disadvantaged women, indigenous women, female heads of households, refugees and migrant women, and women with disabilities, states Michael Chossudovsky. Governments participated in the 48th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in March 2004, reaching the conclusion that gender discrimination can be eliminated by increasing the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality. Michael Kaufman suggests that involving men may help to support issues that were marginalized as of interests of women only. Oxfam GB, a confederation of 12 agencies of diverse cultures and languages, finds links between gender discrimination and poverty, and it states that social structures and religious barriers are responsible for widening the gap between genders. Paul Zopf points out in American Women in Poverty that if an economy denies women equity in job and wage opportunities, then it nurtures discrimination, and he advocates for structural changes in the occupational-industrial complex to eliminate gender discrimination. Marjorie Koblinsky and colleagues outline the health consequences of poverty, malnutrition, and gender discrimination, and suggest that reallocating resources, rather than considering gender values, would be a positive step. Society needs to go beyond the prevalent discriminatory concept of the sexes. The qualities and characteristics that are distinctive in each sex should be recognized. A simple denial may deprive an individual of leading a happy and successful life. To discover one’s gender without discriminating against other genders may help fighting gender discrimination, and this discovery provides an answer to what it means to be a woman or a man. Any conception that widens the gap between reality and image is a misconception. Cases of discrimination occur when there is an incorrect flow of attribution of qualities to individuals. Discrimination is not dependent on comparison and value, but it can be described in comparative terms. Eradicating gender discrimination demands the eradication of sexual differences or the human values that are responsible for such provisions. Since physical differences (nature) in the sexes are biologically conditioned; it is social, emotional, psychological, and intellectual differences (nurture) that are amenable to studying gender discrimination. Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University See Also:Gender and Food Security; Gender Division of Labor; Gender Poverty Gap; Women. Further Readings Bussolo, Maurizio, and R. E. De Hoyos. Gender Aspects of the Trade and Poverty Nexus: A Macro-Micro Approach. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Page 3 of 4

The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty

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Chen, Martha A. Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work, & Poverty. New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women, 2005. Chossudovsky, Michael. The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order. Montreal: Global Research, 2003. Dowling, J. M., and Chin-Fang Yap. Chronic Poverty in Asia: Causes, Consequences and Policies. Singapore: World Scientific, 2009. Kaufman, Michael. Transforming Our Interventions for Gender Equality by Addressing and Involving Men and Boys: A Framework for Analysis and Action. In Sanday Ruxton (Ed.), Gender Equality and Men: Learning from Practice. Oxford, UK: Oxfam GB, 2004. Koblinsky, Marjorie, Judith Timyan, and Jill Gay, eds. The Health of Women: A Global Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993. Macklem, Timothy. Beyond Comparison: Sex and Discrimination. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Palmer, Ezra. Everything You Need to Know About Discrimination. New York: Rosen, 1995. Scott, Hilda. Working Your Way to the Bottom: The Feminization of Poverty. London: Pandora Press, 1984. Zopf, Paul E. American Women in Poverty. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989. Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483345727.n331 10.4135/9781483345727.n331

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The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty