women's rights

Gender inequality - the unequal treatment of individuals based on their gender. A situation where men and women do not enjoy the same rights and opportunities across all sectors of society specifically because they are male or female. 

Gender inequality challenges 

Three main challenges:

  1. Educational Opportunities:

  • Access to secondary and tertiary education 

  • % of women who are illiterate compared to men 

  1. Reproductive health:

  • Sexual violence against women 

  • Forced marriage

  • Trafficking including forced labour - sex slavery 

  • Access to reproductive health services 

  1. Employment opportunities:

  • Wage equality 

  • Political participation 

  • Barriers to employment

Evidence of Gender Inequality:

  • 33,000 girls become child brides each day. 

  • Women in rural parts of Africa spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water 

  • It will take 108 years to close the gender gap 

  • Only 6 countries give women equal legal work rights as men 

  • In the UK for every £1 earned by a man a woman earns 82p. 

  • For the first time in a decade more women are giving up work due to the cost of childcare. 

Economic Participation & Opportunity 

  • Labour force participation

  • Wage equality 

  • Estimated income

  • Legislators, senior officers & managers

  • Professional & technical workers 

Educational Attainment 

  • Literacy rate

  • Primary school enrolment

  • Secondary school enrolment 

  • Tertiary school enrolment 

Health and Survival

  • Sex ratio at birth

  • Healthy life expectancy  

Political Empowerment

  • Women in parliament 

  • Women in ministerial positions 

  • Years with female head of state

Educational Opportunity 

Girls suffer severe disadvantages and exclusion in education in the poorer countries, in particular in rural areas and among the rural poor.

Obstacles to education to female secondary school participation are greatest in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. 

Female education is key to empowering women and achieving gender equality in all respects. 

It helps women move into the labour market and increases production capacity of the labour force.

Areas with greater parity in education have had declines in total fertility rates, population growth rates, and infant mortality rates.

Family health and child nutrition have improved meaning a significant effect on poverty. 

Factors affecting female educational participation in developing countries 

  • Costs may prohibit all the children in a family from continuing in secondary education, but particularly girls 

  • Household obligations fall on the eldest girl because of male out-migration 

  • Patriarchal systems mean female education may only benefit the family she marries into not her own family 

  • Negative classroom environments- girls face violence, exploitation and corporal punishment 

  • Inadequate sanitation in schools 

  • Insufficient numbers of female teachers 

  • Girls being exploited for child labour 

  • Prevalence of child marriage 

  • Differing levels of support for different religions 

  • Early pregnancy

  • Inadequate legislation 

  • Insufficient government investment 

Access to Reproductive Health 

Factors affecting female reproductive health in developing countries 

  • Early forced marriage

  • High rates of young pregnancies 

  • Sexually transmitted disease inc. HIV

  • Harmful traditional practices e.g. FGM 

  • Forced sterilisation or abortion 

  • Sexual violence 

  • Gender bias in education/ access to information 

  • Lack of empowerment in family size/spacing of pregnancies 

Employment Opportunity

Significant global variation; countries with high HDI have a high Labour Force Participation Ratio, although none have achieved female-male employment parity. India has a relatively low ratio compared to other rapidly emerging economies. North Africa and Middle East states have the lowest ratios. 

Factors affecting the spatial variation:

  • social norms e.g. where the main responsibility to secure an income through employment is attributed to men, women are expected to spend time in unpaid domestic care 

  • cultural beliefs & practices of religious/ social groups 

  • level of governmental & company support for child care

  • level to which equal opportunities are safeguarded by law

  • social acceptance of women as contributors to household income 

  • gender-based norms that shape educational and job decisions 

  • levels of discrimination by employers 

What are the barriers to overcome? Some are easier than others 

•Forced marriage – especially child brides

•Trafficking into forced labour including sex slaves

•Access to education and health care, especially when it costs

•Employment opportunity and political participation (delay following eventual education and priority of families)

•Wage equality (still an issue in developed countries)

•Access to family planning clinics/information

•Violence (inc domestic abuse where women cant speak out)

•During times of violent conflict, rape is frequently used as a military tactic to harm, humiliate and shame. Violence and war can also weaken systems of protection, security and justice. For these reasons, conflicts often exacerbate and escalate sexual violence.