HO CHO IENG WENDY SB919553
LO TIN WENG ELLA AB917245
WANG YIN KANG NI CHRISTINE SB923035
FINAL ESSAY
Gender Inequality
A Right Scale for Higher Education
Wendy
Gender inequality is a serious issue over the past centuries. According to UNFPA,
gender inequality exists in the society due to the perception towards the two genders
depending on their sex, strengths, capacity, and capability to do a certain task. This
stereotyped thinking has made women being in a low status at home and in the society.
In the past decades, women began to realize their rights and importance, thus they have
started to fight for their rights leading to people raising their concern on the issue –
gender inequality. According to Shetty (2015), a lecturer of the Department of
Economics from Poornaprajna College and Hans, a Associate Professor of Economics and
Research Supervisor from St.Aloysius Evening College suggested that education is
regarded as a breakthrough in reducing gender inequality as it enables women to realize
their rights and importance and enables them to fight against their traditional role thus
changing their life. Aside from receiving high-level education, there are lots of
suggestions on how to reduce gender inequality such as increasing women’s
employment, involving them in active politics and social activities, etc. For us, we think
that offering high-level education to women is the most efficient way to reduce gender
inequality. In this paper, we would like to discuss three reasons why we think equal
opportunity in receiving higher education is the most efficient way to reduce gender
inequality.
Ella
First, equal opportunity to receive higher education allows females to have an equal
chance to participate in professional careers that involve stronger ability. Girls and
women are always considered to be inferior to men, therefore, they are expected to be
obedient and submissive. According to Thelwell (2019), a researcher of The Borgen
Project who has done a research about female education level in India, he has drawn a
conclusion that “The country still has low secondary and tertiary female enrollment.”
This shows that most females still do not have the opportunity to receive higher
education in developing countries recently, indicating that girls and women do not enjoy
the rights to be involved in professional careers due to lack of educational background,
thus the issue gender inequality is still considered as serious and females are not
properly treated as males in many situations. In this case, receiving higher education for
girls and women is the most efficient way to reduce gender inequality, giving them
chances to prove their roles in the society, also convincing others that ability is not
restricted based on gender itself. According to Somos (2019), a journalist in CTV News
writing about females in federal elections suggests that “This election saw an increase of
10 women elected federally” indicating that there is an increase in number of women
who participated in political positions, showing a trend that women do have the same
ability to be engaged in some professions as men regardless of their sex. Also, receiving
higher education enables women to break stereotypes. Chakrabarty (2019), a journalist
of India Today writes about three women who fulfilled their dreams and participated in
careers involving in technology. As mentioned above, most of the women in India do not
have the opportunity to receive higher education, Chakrabarty mentioned that three of
them simply learned the skills with online courses and got their dream jobs. This shows
that higher education is the key to help them to get to their ideal careers.
Wendy
Furthermore, equal opportunity in receiving higher education enables women to
pursue their dream and have a greater chance to live their ideal life.
According to a journal written by Parker (2015), who has received a Ph.D.
degree in Southwestern Oklahoma State University, mentioned that in the past women
desire to be able to receive higher education is a controversial issue, as in the 1820s and
1830s women crave for higher education has created a great debate that lasted a
century. During the debate, traditionalists stated that higher education would damage
the role of women in a family as a housewife, mother, and wife. This shows that
stereotyped thinking has hindered women to receive higher education. Moreover,
according to Parker (2015), in the past in the occupation group called the profession
such as law, medicine, etc. is mostly represented by men during the two decades from
1960 to 1980, as limit is set on the number of females that university would give offer to
thus restricting the number of women being able to participate in elite professions
which are jobs that require people to be highly educated. These obstacles have hindered
women to have their careers and pursue their dream which should be a common right
for everyone.
Therefore, having equal opportunity in receiving higher education allows
women to have the chance to choose the life they want without living under the
