1. GENDER INEQUALITY AS A WORLDWIDE SOCIAL ISSUE 1
Gender Inequality as a Worldwide Social Issue
James M. O’Banion
Fremont High School

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Abstract
This research paper regards the current status of gender inequality as a social issue as well as
how and why it should be improved upon. It includes statistics and trends of beliefs and actions
regarding the issue, gathered through articles and surveys published online as well as a
personally conducted survey of eighteen high school students concerning relevant questions of
knowledge and opinions on issues of gender inequality. The statistics and data gathered correlate
toward a likelihood that gender inequality is still largely present, existing more apparently to
those who experience it more frequently. Therefore, more men than women surveyed tended to
believe that gender equality was less of an issue today. Similarly, men surveyed who favored a
state of gender inequality (no women surveyed took this stance) also tended to believe that
gender inequality was less of an issue today. Statistics gathered online reflect a current status of
genders that is far from ideal, including a high rate of gender-preferential infanticide in
southeastern Asia, rates above 25% in some countries for rape victimization of women, rates of
female genital mutilation exceeding 90% for underage women in some African countries (“The
Facts,” 2012), and rates of suicide attempts exceeding 50% for transgendered people (Grant,
Mottet, & Tanis, 2011).

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We live in a society that sets harmful “norms” that are difficult to realize in their entirety.
They are often seen as insignificant in our nation’s state of order, only becoming truly apparent
to us when extreme cases draw media attention. But these extreme cases exist as norms in part of
the world that haven’t yet dismantled them to the point of being uncommon or extreme. To hear
of an infant killed because of her gender, or rape being used as a political device is a prominent
example of this. Gender inequality is a social issue that still strongly influences life everywhere,
including the United States, sometimes in ways that are still just beginning to surface. Women
and transgendered people stand at a huge social and economic disadvantage, and at the current
rate, it will still be many decades before the issue is at least statistically sound.
Women are perhaps the most oppressed categorization of people in history.
Discrimination against women has endured since the beginning of human history, originally as a
result of natural physical inequality which evolved into social inequality as a sense of universal
male superiority. Such discrimination still exists prominently today in many forms of social and
physical malice. According to a report by Advocates for Youth, “Harmful practices, including
female genital cutting/mutilation, femicide, gender-based violence, and early marriage, damage
girls’ physical being and self-worth by reinforcing gender-based marginalization and inequality”
(“The Facts,” 2012). The following four paragraphs serve to describe the current status of
discrimination against women and the efforts persisting internationally to aid in its elimination.
The most fundamental issue of discrimination against women is violence. Its cost is
detriment to human health and human lives. In China, India, and much of southern Asia,
widespread gender-based infanticide has led to a huge disproportion in the genders of many
countries' populations. According to China's 2000 census, the country's ratio of newborn girls to
boys was 100:119, versus the average biological ratio of 100:103. Several countries in northern

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Africa, including the largely modernized Egypt, have recorded rates exceeding 90% of women
age 15-49 having endured female genital mutilation, or the non-medical removal of all or part of
a woman's genitalia. In sub-Saharan Africa, rape, extremely widespread nonetheless, is used as a
weapon in times of war, committed against women of enemy populations. In the United States,
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides an estimate of 20 percent of young
women having experienced violence from intimate partners (“The Facts,” 2012). Femicide in all
forms, including “dowry deaths” (murder of a wife by her husband or family-in-law due to
insufficient money or property included as a type of gift in marriage) and “honor killings”
(murder of women by their families due to shame brought upon them, including as a result of
rape victimization), continues to produce one of the largest categories of discrimination-based
death in history (“Gender inequality,” 2007).
Socially, women suffer economically as a result of employment discrimination,
workplace harassment, and often unconsidered inevitable lifestyle hardships (e.g. childbirth), as
well as psychologically as a result of heavily instilled gender roles and sense of
inferiority/objectification. In the United States, as a generally progressive nation, gaps in jobs'
salaries relative to gender generally range from 2 to 6 percent, still significantly lower than the
international average but also significantly higher than the international minimum (Hsu, 2011).
Pregnancy, parenting, being hired into dead-end jobs due to hardships seen as nuisances by
employers such as pregnancy and parenting, and other forms of employer discrimination appear
to be primary causes of work-oriented female oppression. Women around the world endure
psychological detriment as they are forced into submissive roles in society and their families in
forms ranging from childhood prodding toward a domestically bound sense of duty (e.g.

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advertisement to girls of infant dolls and toy cooking applications) to young marriage and
tolerance of marital abuse learned through childhood observation.
Through a personally conducted survey of a high school English class, it was found that
women's rights are, as one might expect, seen as a more prominent issue today by women. Men
more often favored the view that society has already reached a point at which men and women
are treated equally. This, partially as a case of ignorance due to lack of personal experience,
undoubtedly, provokes a suggestion that the public ought to be reminded of the struggle women
still face today internationally or in more volatile scenarios within the United States.
While violence and social oppression continue to greatly affect women, attempts to
combat all forms of female discrimination have proven successful. Programs based in Africa,
southern Asia, and Latin America are working to empower women and influence against the
practices of gender-based infanticide, female genital mutilation, female sexual harassment, child
marriage, etcetera across thousands of cities, villages, and communities, while programs in the
United States and Europe are nationally monitoring and reestablishing employee payment
methodologies. Much of this success has been developed through the banning of harmful
practices and methodologies, such as child marriage (through the efforts of USAID and political
action in Africa) (“The Facts,” 2012) and new requirements of written pay reports and merit
reward systems in businesses (Hsu, 2011).
While they are justifiably viewed as the primary victims of gender inequality, women are
not the sole victims of its dire consequences. Only recently has society begun to realize the
effects of gender-based discrimination on the transgender community. As a necessary
clarification, and what identifies transgender discrimination as an issue of gender inequality,

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gender is defined as “either the male or female subdivision of a species, especially as
differentiated by social and cultural roles and behavior” (“Gender,” 2005). This contrasts with
“sex,” being rather the biological distinction between males and females. This means that gender
is determined not by one's physical characteristics in any sense, but by one's variably identifiable
behavior relative to that of one's cultural definitions of “male” and “female.” Transgendered
people, while for somewhat different reasons, face social and physical oppression just as women
do, and this similarly causes significant harm, especially in forms of harassment and isolation.
The majority of discrimination transgendered people endure is a result of public
ignorance of how or why people may justifiably identify as the gender opposite their biological
sex. Otherwise, in very common cases of further ignorance, discrimination derives from the
presumption that transgenderism is synonymous with homosexuality (Shlasko, 2014). From a
variety of causes, transgendered people face many resultant hardships: most prominently, the
extreme likelihood of poverty, harassment, and attempted suicide.
In a report on the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, “Those who expressed a
transgender identity or gender non-conformity while in grades K-12 reported alarming rates of
harassment (78%), physical assault (35%), and sexual violence (12%); harassment was so severe
that it led almost one-sixth (15%) to leave a school in K-12 settings or in higher education.” As a
report on the status of transgender discrimination in the United States, these statistics provide as
a matter of fact that transgendered people face troubles that, in some cases, exceed the severity of
any other such broad social groups. Transgendered people are also twice as likely to be
unemployed and four times more likely to live in extreme poverty, therefore earning less than
$10,000 per year. Struggles with harassment and financial instability are believed to be the

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primary causes of the striking transgender attempted suicide rate, standing at 41 percent of
respondents (Grant, Mottet, & Tanis, 2011).
Through the same personally conducted survey on women's rights, participants were
asked to define “transgendered” in their own words. Surprisingly, the majority failed to do so
with sufficient accuracy. Furthermore, those who were unable to define “transgendered” were
more likely to be opposed to the concept of transgenderism. This strongly suggests that the
public ignorance is partially to blame for opposition to transgendered people, and that public
education on the issue would be an effective solution. Interestingly, men tended to be opposed to
transgenderism more than women, perhaps implying that a cause of this form of gender
inequality could be a lack of firsthand experience of gender-based discrimination.
Women, as a deliberate minority, and the transgendered community, as an emerging but
already extremely oppressed minority, stand for inevitable justice and survival in their current,
extremely harsh status. We have not yet reached an optimum era of progress, and internationally,
this goal is still very much at a distance. Gender inequality is an extremely relevant social issue
today that requires all individuals as active, open-minded, and open-hearted belligerents. Much
of the solution lies in our ability to raise public awareness of the issues at hand.