Gender Equality (Research Paper Sample)

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Outline: Gender Inequality
Argumentative thesis: Gender inequality is a rampant issue across the world and efforts to solve the issue are evident in all spheres of life, since it has led to suppression and discrimination of women across societies.
Overview
In this case, the paper will focus on different primary sources such as journal articles and books in order to enhance an informative analysis of gender inequality.
For this reason, the discussion will be built on what exactly necessitates gender inequality and how the involved parties have tried to respond to the issue.
However, the problem appears, since feminists have achieved a lot and have shown efforts to enhance gender equality. However, the evidence will be provided from recent researches that have been done concerning the topic in order to indicate that gender equality has not been reached yet (Glick and Fiske 75).
This paper will seek to establish that no matter how hard women have been determined to fight for gender equality, they have experienced many challenges, such as persecutions from some of their female colleagues and suppressions from men in determining leadership positions.
Men’s perception of women
It can be established that men generally perceive women as highly inferior in nature (Stombler and Padavic 258).
According to men, women should always obey and respond to satisfy their sexual desires (Jeffreys 42).
Women have traditionally been perceived as tools that should act on the demands of men (Stombler 299).
Established efforts to curb gender inequality
Though women have done everything in their power to water down male dominance, it has become difficult for them to succeed in this course (Kitchen et al. 1827).
Women have formed associations in order to fight for their rights and be perceived as human beings, who are as capable as men.
The fact that women have started gaining high positions in leadership and workplaces is a proof (Bjarnegård 12).
Challenges encountered in pursuance of gender equality
Women have encountered many challenges in their fight for equality in various sectors across the world.
Stereotyping is as a major challenge to gender equality (Stombler and Martin 158).
Some women have acted as betrayers of the initiatives to enhance gender equality (Blau).
Gender Inequality
Gender equality is described as the perception that both men and women should get the same treatment devoid of discrimination based on sex. Gender equality is also referred to as gender egalitarianism, sex equality, equality of the genders, and sexual equality. To enforce this balance, the United Nations established a cause known as the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" that seeks to create equality in social settings, democratic movements and at work. In addition, this organization is seeking to enshrine this notion in the laws of the world. To avoid imminent problems, this law will exclude other genders (apart from male and female) that are not explicitly defined. The topic of right involves two sides: men’s rights as well as women’s rights. As a result, this paper will look at the history of gender equality, offer arguments from the perspective of both male and female sexes, and, finally, come up with recommendations on how best to deal with the recurring tensions between the two genders. As it is noted, the world needs a mixture of the two to sustain continued development.
History
Gender equality is a subject that has lingered for decades now. Many women have stood up to lament the oppression that they face in their households, public places, and even in religious settings. One of the earliest advocates of this movement was Christine de Pizan, who highlighted the plight of the oppressed women in her book, The Book of the City of Ladies, published in 1405. According to her account, she notes that oppression of women is a result of irrational prejudice underlining several developments in the society mostly crafted by women. There have been several female groups formed to fight this struggle. Some of them are listed below.
The Shakers
The Shakers were a zealous group that practiced seclusion of genders and stringent celibacy (Rowbotham 104). They were the initial practitioners of equality. They separated from a “Quaker” community in England’s northwest before arriving to America in 1774 (Rowbotham 104). In their first years in America, Joseph Meacham, the group’s key minister, made a disclosure that the genders should be treated similarly (Rowbotham 104). As a result, he took in a woman minister as his equal. Her name was Lucy Wright. Jointly, they reassembled the movement to make sexes equal (Rowbotham 104). The two introduced guidance groups where elders and “eldresses” were partnered together to act as the chaperons in the transcendent health of the congregation for both males and females. In addition, each deacon was paired with a “deaconess” (Rowbotham 104). The group was more than a sweeping religious cult on the peripheries of the American society, as it practically put equality of both genders into practice. It showed that it was possible to integrate both sexes together and achieve great success (Rowbotham 104).
The Suffrage Movement
This was another important group that fought for the privileges of women to vote and be elected to important seats in the National elections throughout the United States in the 19th century (Rowbotham 103). During this era, the rights of women to assets also experienced a far-reaching change, principally in relation to their marital standing. All this happened before the World War II. After the war, a more sophisticated movement for gender parity was established based on the rights of women and feminism (Rowbotham 103). The core agenda was that of the rights of women in regards to men. The crusade backed the identical treatment of both sexes.
Since then a lot of international and domestic groups, organizations as well as individuals have stood up for the equal treatment of women in the society. Consequently, this has led to the mass production of literary materials that passed the same message. In the past centuries, books were the major forms of mass communication used to protest, give ideologies, or inform the public. Hence, they became an integral part of the feminist movement. In this paper, some of the arguments brought forward by various authors about gender equality will be highlighted.
First, the work of Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney, who majorly tackled the issue of sexual harassment in the higher institutions of learning, will be addressed. In their book Sexual Assault on Campus: A Multilevel, Integrative Approach to Party Rape, the three researchers used a 1997 National Institute of Justice research to come up with the conclusion that:
Between one-fifth and one-quarter of women are the victims of complete or attempted rape while in college. College women are at a greater risk for rape and other forms of sexual assault than women in the general population or a comparable age group. (Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney 1)
The majority of this cases that occur in colleges and other higher learning institutions are influenced by the excessive uptake of alcoholic beverages and other drugs by the perpetrator, the victim, or both (Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney 1). The above observations are an excellent indication of the sexual exploitation suffered by women in these institutions. These authors wonder why it is so hard for women to feel safe in the places that should be shielding them from these heinous acts despite massive efforts to prevent them.
In their further research, they conclude that continued sexual assault can be attributed to the replication of gender inequality in the modern society. On a personal note, I think that it is not fair for any person from either gender to be coerced, tricked or forced into sexual activity. It is solely up to the individual to decide when, where, and how to indulge in this activity. As a result, such inequality is highlighted by various groups fighting harassment and assault directed towards women. Therefore, the acts of rape and other sexual assault instances are clear indications of the perception of superiority among the male gender. They feel domineering and controlling towards women and use the force to attain sexual favors (Kitchen et al. 1834). To conclude this argument, the authors assert that:
We demonstrate that sexual assault is a predictable outcome of a synergistic intersection of both gendered and seemingly gender neutral processes operating at individual, organizational, and interactional levels. The concentration of homogenous students with expectations of partying fosters the development of sexualized peer cultures organized around status. Residential arrangements intensify students’ desires to party in male-dominated fraternities (Kitchen et al. 1834).
Another instance of gender inequality is observed in the Fraternity Little Sisters organizations (Stombler). These organizations offer insights into how women are treated with respect to leadership seat allocations and sexual harassment by being “commodified” and objectified (Stombler and Martin). This movement of undergraduate women is connected to the men’s social fraternity. According to Stombler, the women to join these social movements are selected by men based on sociability and beauty after the process designed after the fraternity men’s rush. The rushees attend merrymaking events or meetings for some days, and, if chosen, they go through an inductee period and are afterwards introduced as quasi-members of the fraternity (Stombler and Martin). Those women who join the movement say that the...