Discrimination Against Women

Equality is the cornerstone of every democratic society, which aspires to social justice and human rights. But the concept of equality means much more than treating all persons in the same way. In virtually all societies and spheres of activity women are subject to inequalities in law and in fact. This situation is both caused and exacerbated by the existence of discrimination in the family, in the community and in the workplace. While causes and consequences may vary from country to country, not only in Hong Kong but over the world, discrimination against women is widespread.

From the Discrimination Against Women: The Convention And The Committee Fact Sheet No.22, the term "discrimination against women" shall mean any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights an fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.

Why can it spread so widely? It is perpetuated by the survival of stereotypes and of traditional cultural and religious practices and beliefs detrimental to women. Women always don't have the same human right as men. In this society, a nuraber of countries throughout the world, women are denied their basis legal rights, including the right to vote and the right to own property. Many countries discriminate against female nationals who marry foreigners. Foreign wives of male nationals may be permitted to acquire their husband's nationality, but foreign husbanRAB of female nationals are not granted the same right.

There are very few places in the world where women are denied a formal right to education. In many countries, parents do not expect their daughters to have careers outside the home. Consequently, girl-children are encouraged to leave school after completing only a basic or elementary education. Event at the elementary level, male students may be given a more rigorous and demanding curriculum than their female classmates may. For example, in China, many Chinese think that women with no talent are happiness. Women need not to study, as they will marry men. The most important thing is to learn how to be a good wife.

Textbooks used in schools often reinforce traditional, unequal stereotypes, particularly as these apply to employment and domestic and parenting responsibilities. Teachers may promote this type of gender-role stereotyping by discouraging female students from engaging in mathematics, sciences, sports and other so-called "male" areas of study or activity. They may believe that female students are better to study art subject.

In the office, instead of being treated as equal co-workers, women are often treated as sexual objects. They are always the targets of the sexual harassment. Many private businesses discriminate against women employees by not giving them the same access to family benefits and insurance as male employees.

In the recent century, more and more women come out to work. The middle class women's entry into the labor force has helped transform the patterns of family life, especially for parents with young children. But how much have women's traditional gender roles been altered by these changes? Although women have entered the workforce in dramatic nurabers, they still expected to fulfill roles at home; the burden of house and child-care remains on their shoulders. In the work family role system, although both fathers and mothers are now in the labor force, it is still assumed that it is the woman, for example, who will take off from work if the child is sick. HusbanRAB, on the other hand, are still expected to adjust their family life so that their jobs can still come first.

There is also a problem of discrimination against women in the private sphere, including discrimination in the area of family law. Much discrimination against women takes place in their own homes by their husbanRAB, their families and their communities. In some societies, young women or girls are forced into arranged marriages. Women of many countries do not have the same property rights as men: traditional property law often discriminates against women in that only male children are able to inherit the family land and that husbanRAB have the automatic ownership over all of their wife's property upon marriage. But this area of discrimination is usually based on long-standing cultural or religious practices: it is the one of the most difficult areas to penetrate and one of the most resistant to change.

From the above example, we can see that female are always looked down as lower class than male in society, family, school, office،K Actually, everyone should have equal right and opportunities no matter you are a man or a woman. Both are acting as a very important ache in the society. Those discriminations against women cause so many problems such as the society may lost a great amount of talents, hamper the economic growth and prosperity. The unfairness between a daughter and a son may cause a bad family relation. Also, the female employees may loss the aggressiveness in their working performance, as they know they won't look upon by the boss. There is no advantage to all the companies by discriminating female employees. Therefore, there is a need for a change in attitudes, through education of both men and women to accept equality of rights and responsibilities and to overcome prejudices and practices based on stereotyped roles. If you are a parent who wants to keep a good family relation or you are a boss who wants to get more big business, you should think deeply about the equality between male and female, don't discriminate female.

Fortunately, women are now more conscious of their position in society and of their ability to adopt new roles. Woman today involves more work than ever, that is, each woman must in a sense try to invent herself within the maelstrom of cultural messages and social roles now available to her. She cannot count on being able to fall back on a well worn path of femininity, but must choose what kind of woman she will be at each point I her life:

Being a woman, in other worRAB, can now mean the adoption of many different identities, composed of a whole range of subject positions not predetermined by immovable definitions of femininty.