The Elusive Equality

There’s an old adage that runs something along the lines of, bad weeds never die.

Apparently, neither does chauvinism: in a report commissioned by the United Nations and compiled by Fareda Banda, a law professor at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), women are discriminated against in almost every country around the world.

As women we are all too aware of the limitations placed on – and exploitation exacted from – our gender, but the sheer preponderance of gender bias never fails to boggle.

For example, 70% of the world’s poor are women and they own just 1% of the world’s titled land, while rape within marriage has still not been made a crime in 53 nations, including parts of South America, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East [below, pink indicates marital rape is criminalized]. 

As Professor Banda notes, varying ages for marriage also have a knock-on effect for a woman’s education and life chances:

Many states still have different ages of marriage for young women then they have for young men, and the age for girls is always lower then the age for boys. This leads to violations, for example of a girls’ right education, if she has to leave school at 14 to get married, and this impacts upon her life chances. It ends up being a life-long violation of her rights in terms of forfeiting education, having children too early, possibly being damaged herself.

If developing countries immediately spring to mind when discussing gender discrimination, think again: only four years ago Professor Banda found herself the victim of discrimination at SOAS:

After a casual enquiry about her pay, she uncovered evidence that, for the six years she had been employed by SOAS, she had been paid up to $10,000 less than her white colleagues. When Dr Banda took her complaint to senior members of the college, she was told that pay was “not an exact science”. However, it later emerged that a male law lecturer who had arrived at SOAS three years after Dr Banda was being paid thousands of pounds more than her. [Source]

Despite the passing of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, women in all areas of employment in the U.K. – and Europe – are experiencing discrimination, whether it is economic or social in manifestation.

Only yesterday, as opposed to lauding the rise in female medical students and doctors, an article by Dr. Brian McKinstry was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) lamenting their presence as ‘limiting’ and ‘bad for medicine’:

Over the past 30 years the proportion of women attending medical schools has steadily risen in many countries including the UK, US, Canada, and Australia. In 2002-3, all UK medical schools had more female students than male, with the percentage of women exceeding 65% in some. Why does this matter?

Despite many years of feminist discourse society still expects women rather than men to reduce work commitments to look after children and not to return to full time work until the children are older. However, research among general practitioners has shown that many women in their 50s, when their children are relatively independent, continue to work part time, often because of other caring demands.

Fewer women than men choose to work out of hours…[also] women consult for longer with patients, and in one UK study of out of hours consultations they were 30% more likely to refer to hospital increasing pressure on hospital services. Moreover, recent UK research shows that even full time female consultants see fewer patients than their male colleagues.

While McKinstry’s article is succinct and cogent – that is, it wheedles away from the sexist tone that lurks behind his tactful analysis – the subsequent radio interview in which McKinstry verbally tussled with a female contemporary revealed a resentment of the ‘emotional’ facets ‘inherent’ in women.

Women, he reasoned, get too attached and involved with patients, and therefore can be burdensome to the flagging NHS; by this, I imagine he is riled by the prospect of future GPs who would check their patients thoroughly, rather than pressing a packet of Ibuprofen into their palm and waving nonchalently from the door as the patient hacks and coughs their way to an MRSA-riddled oblivion.

As the recent report suggests, women the world over are experiencing discrimination on a plethora of levels, regardless of the legislation passed to protect them – a point reaffirmed by the fact that while 185 UN member states pledged to outlaw laws favouring men by 2005, chauvinism remains rampant.

The report recommends the introduction of a new, separate mechanism to fight discrimination because existing UN and international human rights laws are not being upheld.

Equally, it calls for a new UN expert to focus specifically on laws which damage women’s chances in life.

While the endeavours of the UN are admirable and worthy, could the new initiatives really work? What would it really take to cease gender discrimination on a global level?

The report by Professor Banda has so far proved elusive – perhaps it is not published publicly, yet? – but for further details on the status of women, visit CEDAW and WomenWatch.

[Map source: UNICEF, UNIFEM]