Does gender equality really exist?

In The Saturday Times, there was a considerable section on 'Women rising'. Browsing through the various reports on the accomplishments of women in the world, it may lead many to deem the success of gender equality to be true. However, an article that stood out from the rest caught my attention. It read, "Look closely at the figures - it's still a man's world".

If we were to look around the world recently, you could be led to think that there is no longer any need for women to fight for equality. After all, we see progressively more women holding government official posts in many countries. However, this phenomenon varies from country to country, with some parts of the world scoring better than others. Looking at countries with the largest proportions of female MPs, Rwanda ranks the fifth, where women make up almost half the MPs. However, at the other end of the spectrum, neither Saudi Arabia nor Kuwait has a single woman MP. We can see that Arab women, especially, still hold a lower place than the men in the Arab countries. I do not see the point of this inequality.

From the statistics of the International Labour Organisation, between 2000 and 2002, data showed that women made up as little as 20 per cent of managers in 48 out of 63 coutnries. And worldwide, more women than men have low-status jobs, and fewer own businesses employing others. In fact, the only area where women clearly outperform men is in the domestic realm, where they form almost two-thirds of the total.

Why are women still under the hands of men? To many, women are every bit as affected as any man by the challenges facing humanity. Hence, they should be given the same right and engagement in the decision-making processes in all areas, with equal strength and in equal numbers. They should not be only left at home doing housework and looking after the kids. Instead, women should be given the right to be involved in world matters, physically. There is no reason for men to put women down, because both have the same ability to decide for themselves what is good or bad, what is suitable and not.

Besides, the statistics given in the article made me speechless. Amnesty International says at least a third of all women worldwide are beaten, raped or otherwise abused. It is estimated that up to two million women a year are trafficked and forced into prostitution, slavery, sweatshop labour or expliotative domestic servitude. What actually made women deserve such injustice? What is democracy so often said to be emphasised by countries with such inequality to women? Although there is no data on men for comparison here, that for women is really shocking and unbelievable.

In our modern world where countries are working towards being democratic, we should give enough attention to the actual need for gender equality to really exist, such that what we see will tone with the statistics obtained. Men and women should ultimately be seen as 'human', instead of 'Man'.