Empowering Women is A Priority
To measure development, the United Nations Development Programme uses the Human Development Index, which uses three indicators : years of schooling, standard of living, and life expectancy. However, the most important is an unwritten rule, embedded in the numbers on UNDP reports, subtly emphasized by the writers of them : the role of women in society. The United Nations has stressed the importance of women and the empowerment of them to be the linchpin in development and the trademark of a developed country. And rightfully so.
Advancing the rights of around half of the global population can have colossal ramifications that would help society and especially the states of advancement forever.
In many countries, such as those on the subcontinent, the rights of women are restricted through their patriarchal culture, which perpetuates gender bias, arranged marriages, and the oppression of women, especially in rural regions. Many arranged marriages result in abusive and negative relationships which disproportionately hurt the women involved.
According to the United Nations Development Programme SDG Program, and specifically SDG 5 ( Gender Equity ), COVID-19 and lockdowns have increased violence against women by 30% , the bulk of that domestic violence in arranged marriages and periphery regions. Many times, the age gap between the groom and bride is usually substantial, a remnant of past centuries still present in underdeveloped countries. Arranged marriages are both reminders of the past, and to young naive girls in LDCs ( less developed countries ), glimpses of a limited future.
To be given a choice is paramount to freedom, so to give young women a say in who they marry and who they love is a substantial step toward gender equality.
Education, a supposedly global right, is one many women in Africa and Asia are deprived of. It is also where the most women farmers are : according to National Geographic, over half of farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia are women.
They are essentially the staple of their family, yet they are not allowed to have a job or an education that could create meaningful change not only for them, but their children because of the culture that patriarchal society facilitates?
Sexist social conditions that grow and encircle the freedom of women, tightening and choking their rights out of them like a python and their prey are based upon the insecurities that men hold about their masculinity and their role which is further based upon societal stereotypes. However, it all comes back to choice. Letting young women build a foundation for their life instead of having to neglect their own and make one for the next generation will have profound impacts economically, culturally, and socially.
As much as we want this to happen, society will not change its ways drastically without the government changing first.
According to UN SDG 5, “Although over 90% of countries and territories mandate nondiscrimination on the basis of gender in employment, almost half of them continued to restrict women from working in certain jobs or industries; and almost a quarter of countries and territories, did not grant women equal rights with men to enter marriage and initiate divorce.”
In reality, it’s strange that governments don’t. Giving women equality can double the workforce, decrease the number of children being born ( a gigantic issue in developing countries ), and most importantly, give them a choice. However, if we want women to have a voice, we need to start from the inside, especially in those countries where gender inequality is highest.
Only when women are equal in government, and have a say in every matter that impacts them, which is practically every matter, will gender equality not be a concept, but a reality.
Many restrictions on women are the result of religious law, particularly in the Middle East and Muslim-majority countries. These governments are slowly progressing toward gender equality, but according to the United Nations, equality for women is what is holding them back from social prosperity. Of course, on the basis of cultural relativism, we cannot judge them based on their religious adherence, and some are a rare case in the fight for gender equality. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that deprives all of its citizens, regardless of gender, the right to participate in democracy , and suffrage.
However, according to the World Economic Forum, they are the 8th worst country in the world based on gender equality. Their laws constrict basic rights of women, treating them like their Renaissance era counterparts.
Many countries step over the line frequently, yet the worst offenses are not the blatant ones, but the subtle offenses that traverse quietly through the widening holes in the ethics and morals of modern society.
It is a lie that gender equality precedes economic prosperity.
The great Greek and Roman Empires, the Chinese dynasties, the Mongol Empire, and now the kingdoms and oil-rich countries of the Arabian Peninsula have shown that. Sadly, we cannot change the society of those countries dramatically for they have no incentive to.
Many of their TFR´s ( Total Fertility Rate ) are on par with an MDC´s ( More Developed Country ). Their economy is rich, though susceptible to commodity dependence. Where efforts for real gender equality should be focused is where regions are developing and at the start of rapid economic growth. By doing this, according to Warren Thompson’s Demographic Transition Model, by helping women in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia get an equal, gender-biased education, they will have a choice on who to love, where to work, and how many kids they want to have. For millennia, the main task of the women in the family is the childbearer. With an education that gives them independence and most importantly a say, society in those countries can begin to mirror the positives of possibly our own, but with its own flaws. Again, none of this will happen if the governments don’t budge.
But in an increasingly vocal and democratic world, we can hope.
