Being fortunate enough to live in a free, (mostly) tolerant, democratic society like Australia, you often hear that feminism has outlived its usefulness. In fact, there is a stigma associated with being a feminist, with words being thrown around like "feminazis", associations made that if you're a feminist you must be a man-hating lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with being a lesbian), that you don't shave your armpits, that feminists are cannot be feminine, and so on. This comes from men and women alike, with many women getting defensive and being quick to declare "I am not a feminist", as though it is a bad thing. I will admit, that in my younger years I too was quick to declare that I am not a feminist, so as to distance myself from the negative associations that come with the title.
Now, in a positive spin, you can say that things could be worse, and these attitudes towards feminism today are due to a relative equality that exists today between the sexes that did not exist 40, even 30 years ago. Certainly in countries like Australia (or my home country of Israel for that matter), it is true to say that things are pretty good right now, and yes, things could be a LOT worse. But everything is relative, and if you ask me, "pretty good" is not "good enough". Now, I am not going to say that anything short of 100% full equality is unacceptable, because that is never going to happen. Even if every woman and man that sought full equality between the sexes were to see the fulfilment of this vision, there would still not be full equality, simply because some women don't want it. What do I mean by that? Well, some women with tertiary education choose to exit the workforce permanently when they have children. Similarly, not all women have the ambition to progress up the corporate ladder, or run for public office. Some do not want to work long hours, or give up family time, or are not motivated by large paychecks, and so on and so forth. Not that these views are unique to women, but the point is, it is never going to be fully equal in terms of representation, and so long as that's a matter of choice, and not a product of patriarchal traditions, sexism, discrimination and so on then that is perfectly fine, at least by me.
Having said all that, I would have to stop short of arguing that feminism has outlived its use. Yes, even in the free world. Women still face issues of inherent prejudices against them, are still significantly under-represented in public positions, at the head of companies, and even in the most progressive societies, there is still a significant wage gap between the sexes, accounting for similar or equivalent work, experience levels, educational background and so on. Now I am no research or statistics expert, however, pick any given country, like Australia, Canada, the US or any other you fancy, do a bit of research, and I think you'll find that even when you account for elements of choice and free will, the gaps you find cannot be adequately explained by these elements. Now since this blog post is just my opinion, and not a news article or academic paper, I'm not going to present statistical events to the claims I have just made because, let's just say that I have done a lot of reading on these topics over the years, and if you are interested I encourage you to use your minds, take initiatives and do the research yourselves.
What I will do, is present you with some general findings about the status of women in the G20. TrustLaw, a Thomson Reuters Foundation Service, conducted a global poll of experts in the world's major economies in order to determine the status of women in these countries. Now keep in mind, not all is bad in these countries, however it appears to have been the purpose of this poll to focus on what IS bad, or to put it more politely, what issues are still of concern and in need of addressing. Just another reservation, not all G20 countries are democracies. That in mind, the problems, or challenges, which women face vary from country to country, based on that country's characteristics, such as cultural influences, the nature of their regime, the governing system etc. So yes, some countries, when you consider things on a relative scale, are far worse than others. Nevertheless, let us just this once not employ the now quite popular term "first world problems" even when analysing the status of women in the first world, which is "relatively" better, because let's face it: if you are going to talk about relativity, then you can't ignore that it works both ways. Country A being better than Country B in its treatment of women is simply not good enough, when Woman A in Country A is at a disadvantage be it politically, culturally, socially, economically than Man B in Country A. Unless of course you don't mind being a hypocrite, which is fine for you, though I reserve the right to judge you accordingly.
OK then, what are the findings of the TrustLaw poll? The best and the worst first: Ranked at the distinguished number 1 among G20 countries is Canada. Ranked at the dishonourable worst is India. The latter result is quite surprising to me personally, seeing as India "beats" Saudi Arabia, a country known for its dire oppression of women, to the first-in-reverse spot.
Some key findings of the poll:
Wage/Wealth Gaps
Now, in a positive spin, you can say that things could be worse, and these attitudes towards feminism today are due to a relative equality that exists today between the sexes that did not exist 40, even 30 years ago. Certainly in countries like Australia (or my home country of Israel for that matter), it is true to say that things are pretty good right now, and yes, things could be a LOT worse. But everything is relative, and if you ask me, "pretty good" is not "good enough". Now, I am not going to say that anything short of 100% full equality is unacceptable, because that is never going to happen. Even if every woman and man that sought full equality between the sexes were to see the fulfilment of this vision, there would still not be full equality, simply because some women don't want it. What do I mean by that? Well, some women with tertiary education choose to exit the workforce permanently when they have children. Similarly, not all women have the ambition to progress up the corporate ladder, or run for public office. Some do not want to work long hours, or give up family time, or are not motivated by large paychecks, and so on and so forth. Not that these views are unique to women, but the point is, it is never going to be fully equal in terms of representation, and so long as that's a matter of choice, and not a product of patriarchal traditions, sexism, discrimination and so on then that is perfectly fine, at least by me.
Having said all that, I would have to stop short of arguing that feminism has outlived its use. Yes, even in the free world. Women still face issues of inherent prejudices against them, are still significantly under-represented in public positions, at the head of companies, and even in the most progressive societies, there is still a significant wage gap between the sexes, accounting for similar or equivalent work, experience levels, educational background and so on. Now I am no research or statistics expert, however, pick any given country, like Australia, Canada, the US or any other you fancy, do a bit of research, and I think you'll find that even when you account for elements of choice and free will, the gaps you find cannot be adequately explained by these elements. Now since this blog post is just my opinion, and not a news article or academic paper, I'm not going to present statistical events to the claims I have just made because, let's just say that I have done a lot of reading on these topics over the years, and if you are interested I encourage you to use your minds, take initiatives and do the research yourselves.
What I will do, is present you with some general findings about the status of women in the G20. TrustLaw, a Thomson Reuters Foundation Service, conducted a global poll of experts in the world's major economies in order to determine the status of women in these countries. Now keep in mind, not all is bad in these countries, however it appears to have been the purpose of this poll to focus on what IS bad, or to put it more politely, what issues are still of concern and in need of addressing. Just another reservation, not all G20 countries are democracies. That in mind, the problems, or challenges, which women face vary from country to country, based on that country's characteristics, such as cultural influences, the nature of their regime, the governing system etc. So yes, some countries, when you consider things on a relative scale, are far worse than others. Nevertheless, let us just this once not employ the now quite popular term "first world problems" even when analysing the status of women in the first world, which is "relatively" better, because let's face it: if you are going to talk about relativity, then you can't ignore that it works both ways. Country A being better than Country B in its treatment of women is simply not good enough, when Woman A in Country A is at a disadvantage be it politically, culturally, socially, economically than Man B in Country A. Unless of course you don't mind being a hypocrite, which is fine for you, though I reserve the right to judge you accordingly.
OK then, what are the findings of the TrustLaw poll? The best and the worst first: Ranked at the distinguished number 1 among G20 countries is Canada. Ranked at the dishonourable worst is India. The latter result is quite surprising to me personally, seeing as India "beats" Saudi Arabia, a country known for its dire oppression of women, to the first-in-reverse spot.
Some key findings of the poll:
Wage/Wealth Gaps
- In Indonesia, being a woman will mean you own 38% of earned income.
- In South Korea, if you are a woman in full time work, you will be earning 38.9% less than your male counterpart in full time work. Yeah, the guy in the cubicle next to you, your team mate - chances are he takes home more money than you.
- If you are a Japanese woman in full time work, your male colleague is earning about 28.3% more than you.
- Bonjour to the French women, you are currently earning 16.5% less than les hommes whom you work with.
- My fellow Aussies women, did you know you are earning 18% less than the blokes?
- To the Poms, being a British man earns you 18.6% more than your female colleagues.
- Germans, being a big fan of German biers myself (my favourites are this and this, in case you're wondering), I am somewhat jealous that had I been a German woman, my male colleagues would have more money for delicious delicious bier with a 21.6% gender pay gap.
Women's Health/Birth issues
- In India in 2010, 56,000 maternal deaths were recorded. Another issue worth noting, not in the scope of this poll though, is the problem of female infanticide and female foetus abortions which take place in India and other countries. This has lead to a ban in India on sex-determining ultrasounds during pregnancies, though the ultrasounds, and the abortions, still occur nonetheless.
- In Indonesia, every hour a woman will die during childbirth. I will say that again: EVERY HOUR A WOMAN WILL DIE.
- In South Africa, twice as many women live with HIV than man, largely due to higher rates of sexual violence (more on that later).
- in 2008, 1.09 million girls dead or "missing" due to infanticide. This is sometimes (often?) attributed to the one child policy in China.
- In Argentina, it is estimated up to 500,000 clandestine abortions take place every year. This is due to lack of sexual and reproductive education, and lack of access to legal abortions.
- In the USA, or what we often hear of as the leader of the free world, 2011 saw no less than 92 anti-abortion restrictions enacted at a state level. My "favourite" on the abortion debate in the US is the requirement for completely medically unnecessary, physically invasive, mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds a la Virginia, and my real favourite is the response in Georgia, asking for a ban on Vasectomies, because honestly, "It is patently unfair that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women's ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States." (so says bill sponsor Yasmin Neal, and I tend to agree).
- Also in the USA, 22.9 million women do not have health insurance.
Public/Corporate Representation
- In Saudi Arabia, 2011 saw women gain the right to vote. So I dare say public office is out of question. What with the ban on driving, and leaving the house unaccompanied by a male relative and all.
- In South Africa, 42.3% of seats in the lower house of parliament are held by women (this is actually not bad).
- In Mexico, 26.2% of seats in the lower house of parliament are held by women.
- In China, 21.3% of seats in the lower house of parliament are held by women.
- in Russia, 13.6% of seats in the lower house of parliament are held by women .
- In Brazil, 8.6% of seats in the lower house of parliament are held by women .
- In Argentina, 37.4% of seats in the lower house of parliament are held by women.
- In Japan, 11% of seats in the lower house of parliament are held by women .
- In France, 22% of board members in largest publicly traded companies are female.
- In Australia, 35.9% of seats across both parliamentary houses are women. In the corporate world however, there are only 5 female CEOs among the top 200 companies in the country. All around, female representation is not great in Australia, despite those who point to the fact that both the current Prime Minister and the Governor General (and in NSW's case, the Governor as well), are female.
- In the UK, 22.3% of judges are female, and 17% of ministerial positions are held by women.
- In Canada, 1/3 of federally appointed judges are women.
Sexual & Domestic Violence
- In India, 52% of women thinks it's justifiable for a man to beat his wife.
- In Indonesia, 90% of women claim to have been sexually harassed in the workplace.
- In South Africa, 66,196 sexual offences were reported in 2010-11.
- In Mexico, 1/4 of women suffer sexual abuse by their partner.
- In China, 1/4 of women think it's justifiable for a man to beat his wife.
- In Russia, 14,000 women die each year from domestic violence. A further 57,750 are trafficked from Russia each year.
- In Brazil, 250,000 children are estimated to be involved in prostitution.
- In Italy, 1.2 million women have been sexually harassed at work (with former PM Berlusconi's well publicised antics, is it any wonder...?)
- In Australia, 19.1% of women experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.
- In Germany, just 24.4% of convicted sex trafficking offenders received jail time in 2009.
Now, this is already very long and if you've made it this far - congratulations. I still urge you to read the original link and do more research, as there are other disturbing statistics such as marriage rates under the age of 18 in various countries, which I have not covered here.
Now, I'm not such a fan of bra burning myself, they may have outlived their usefulness as a political tactic. And clearly, many of these statistics show gender gaps which are not necessarily evident due to legal, institutionalised forms of discrimination as was the case in the past. But that's just it. Equality and justice can not be a concept on paper only. Laws against sexual harassment, abuse and assault need to be better enforced. Gaps in wages and representation are not simply a fact of life to be accepted, there needs to be awareness and pro-active steps taken to address them. Health issues are a major concern and should not be simply tolerated if they don't affect us.
The solutions from many of these things are around, and they SHOULD be easier to address than many of the problems women dealt with in the past. But they won't address themselves. So men and women, feminism is NOT outdated and it needs YOU - to say something, or do something, because there is still work to be done and every little bit counts!
(And once again, if you've read this far, I congratulate you on this achievement and thank you for reading).
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