HPAVC/HPAVC CD-ROM.iso/pc/HOMEWORK.ZIP/GEOWW3W.TXT

Text File | 1998-07-25 | 9.3 KB | 121 lines

 Gender bias is a worldwide issue affecting every social institution on earth, from
individual families to international political organizations. Men and women live quite
different lives in many cultures and this leads to differences in life changes and
behaviour. Many of these differences originate simply because of the obvious physiological
differences between the sexes. Women and men play different roles in respect to children.
The woman not only gives birth to the child but she also nurses the child. In most societies
this leads to a logical, but unnecessary, division of responsibilities. However, gender bias
and divisions of labour and responsibilities in Third World Countries where families live
subsistence lives in poverty are extremely magnified.
 The women of these countries are born into lives of hardship, poverty and
overwhelmingly unfair responsibilities to their families.
 An example of a womanÆs daily work in a small village in India:
Waking at 4:00am, they light fires, milk buffaloes, sweep floors, fetch water and feed their
families. From 8:00am until 5:00pm, they weed crops for a meager wage. In the early
evenings, they collect branches, twigs and leaves to fuel their cooking fires for vegetables
to nourish their children and grass to feed the buffaloes. Finally they return home
exhausted to cook dinner for their families and do the evening chores of washing and
cleaning.
 The majority of women, living in the poverty of the Third World, find themselves in
similar work situations as those labouring 16 hour days in the Indian village of
Sikandernagar.
 Most of the men also work, but they get paid higher rates than the women for the same
labour and it is very common for them to keep all the income they earn for themselves
instead of sharing it with their families.
 So much of the womenÆs work around and for the home goes unpaid and unrecognized.
The womenÆs work in Third World Countries is often twice the amount that the men
work. Even though women work longer hours and contribute more to the family income
than the men, their work is considered "unproductive" by Government statisticians,
economists and even their own husbands. A huge proportion of the worldÆs real
productivity is undervalued and remains unrecognized.
 These women are the worldÆs invisible workforce.
 Generally speaking, men in Third World Countries have fewer responsibilities than
women to produce food and other necessities like shelter for their families. While a
woman labours to provide for the family, her husbands focus is on interests outside of the
family which do not include his wife or children in any way.
 An example of this division can be seen in many African villages:
Living a subsistent lifestyle, the men and women of these villages plant crops together but
they have quite different goals for their work. The men grow cash crops and keep the income
from them while the women use their crops solely to provide and feed their families. They
are also expected to provide shelter, clothing, school fees and medical care for themselves
and their children.
 According to a World Bank report it is not uncommon for the childrenÆs nutrition to
deteriorate while their fathers choose to spend their income on luxuries such as radios,
wrist watches and bicycles.
 The family responsibility is thrust solely on the womanÆs shoulders.
  Women are greatly disadvantaged in Third World Countries as they are constantly being held
back by poverty and the great family emphasis which is associated with them from birth.
 Discrimination against women can even start before birth in some Asian countries where the
Government pressures its people to limit themselves to one child per family in order to slow
population growth. This has led to parents "disposing" of their daughters for a chance to
have a son, as sons are more "culturally valued" than the daughters. This cultural influence
that having a son is better than having a daughter is present in many Asian countries
including China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan. In these places, among
others, females are becoming the "unwanted sex". Birth ratios in these countries have shown
an alarming swing towards males in recent years and in some places the birth of a baby girl
is a time for great sorrow and disappointment.
 So even before birth, women are disadvantaged and thought of as an unvaluable asset in the
Third World.
 Women in Third World Countries seem to be disadvantaged on all accounts - jobs, health and
nutrition and economic prosperity.
 It has been found out that, on average, women work longer hours than men in every
country in the world except for Australia, Canada and The United States. Averages that show
that womenÆs work can add up to more than 10 more hours a day than men. These divisions of
labour show how exaggerated the gender gap is in Third World Countries.
 WomenÆs health in poverty is fast deterioating and despite the fact that they produce most
or all of the food for their family, they end up eating the least amount.
 The women of these Third World Countries often have up to 3 times more children than
other women around the world, and when they are pregnant  they still have to work the
long hours of labour. This causes great malnutrition and child deaths become very
common. In fact, the possibility of losing a child becomes 100-200 times higher in
developing countries than in the developed world.
 In the field of medicine, just like in the everyday life for poverty stricken countries,
 men
are the symbols of power while women are not looked after by anyone but themselves,
they are the sick and the helpless. Health problems which afflict Third World women
include lack of hygiene, lack of supply of clean water, malnutrition and under-nourishment
and many diseases easily transmitted throughout the community. But there are also some heavy
cultural factors that worsen the womenÆs situation.
 A specific example is female circumcision, an Eastern cultural practice whoÆs aim is to
"purify" the woman by means of surgically removing parts of the womanÆs genitalia. Being an
uncircumcised woman in some places is socially unacceptable and the woman is considered
unable to marry. The procedure has been thought of in the past as a small price to pay to
secure a womanÆs chances in life through  marriage. Now with womenÆs mothers and
grandmothers circumcised, it has been considered by these women to be a normal and necessary
part of growing up. The practise has raised major concerns by some who realize that womenÆs
rights to their own bodies is not being upheld.
 Another cultural influence on womenÆs health comes from the dyeing of women's hands
and feet with Henna dye in Sudan which is done in intricate designs meant to reflect the
womanÆs creative expressions. This Sudanese custom is first done at marriage and then for
every public occasion thereafter. This practise can take many hours of many days to complete
as the Henna dye is slow working. In the past, women had the time to spare to paint this
way, but now with womenÆs heavily increased work loads and family responsibilities they have
had to seek for a quicker way to paint themselves as it is still considered a must by their
society. A new black, stone dye is now a quick solution for the painting of the hands and
feet, but this dye is a very dangerous chemical. Classified by doctors as a deadly poison
and having the power to kill within hours of taking 1 teaspoon of the dye, it is slowly
absorbed into the womenÆs bodies through cracks and abrasions in the skin or directly taken
through the mouth when the woman is eating with her hands or feeding her children with her
fingers. The women now know about the risks of this product but they are forced to use it
and compromise their health as they have no time to use the natural henna.

 Women in Third world Countries live in great poverty under bad housing and health and under
bias cultural beliefs. The men of these countries give little support and love to the women
as they are seen as objects of work and sex to be freely exploited. The womanÆs life is
considered to be a hard working one confined to the home as a Pakistani proverb states:
 "There are only two places for a woman, the house and the grave."
 As well as food supplies, housing, education and better medical facilities, two things are
trying to be brought into these countries to improve living conditions, particularly for the
women. These attitudes being taught throughout these countries are:
 Awareness for change and Awareness for justice.
 Organization like Community Aid Abroad work with these communities to try and build a
fairer world. They believe that peace can exist in this world, that there can be equal
opportunity for all people, and that change can happen if we understand the causes of
injustice and work together to overcome them.
 In many cases the many problems of the poor world can be traced to the excesses of the rich
world. As the rich remain ignorant to these problems the efforts made to restore a balanced
world dies.
 The women of Third World Countries must be taught of how they are being mistreated
and exploited and they must be encouraged to take action against it to stop the unfair cycle
of the povertyÆs woman continuing and becoming any worse than it presently is.