Even in developed countries women are not relied upon to shoulder the responsibilities of a key post. Why? Are today’s women really progressing politically and psychologically? Have the men accepted modern woman to be at equal footing? Has the attitude of men towards women changed? Why the word equality remains abstract for women despite of the constant progress made by them?
Women began to demand the rite to vote for claiming their equality. Their main argument was: if all men are created equal then why not women? The American and British suffrage movements inspired ‘women’s emancipation’ efforts among educated female (and sometimes male) elites worldwide. The most contemporary feminist movements trace their roots to these stirrings at the turn of century. The nineteenth century European movements had a strong influence on the thinking of Fredric angels, who insisted for social equality as a base of progress. Russia expressed similar thoughts.
Still there was a problem. How can women be nominated when she has just achieved the voting rites? There wasn’t any logic that supported women’s claims to political equality. When educated women demanded the right to vote, men in all countries resisted. Thus, most of the world’s women gained the basic right of citizenship only in the last 50 years. Only votes could not bring women into politics, there were some countries that gave the women the right to vote but not to contest in elections. Political parties routinely excluded women from strategic positions and resisted nominating them as eligible candidates.
In late 1990’s, United states and Great Britain that ranked high on various measures of gender equality accounted for less than 7% women parliamentarians. On the contrary Islamic nations, Syria and Indonesia account for 12 % women in elections. Former prime ministers benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and khaleda zia of Bangladesh had gained major power in Muslim societies. Thus, we can conclude that a country’s level of development is not a reliable indicator of women empowerment. Among the 25 developed nations that reported electoral data in 1980, 16 countries had less than 10% female legislators & 7 had only 5% or less female parliamentarians. Countries like France, Greece and Japan had only 2% or less of their legislators as women.
The increasing number of working women has not attained equality for women. A strange fact is that though women’s participation in managerial tasks has increased they are rarely found at the top level of corporate management and ownership. Their under representation in top management limits the number of private sector women entering government as high level appointees. Their lower salaries in turn restrict an important source of financial support.
Question arises that despite of progress made by women in all fields they are not selected for key positions? Is it just a psychological mindset or something more concrete is the reason for inequality between men & women? Psychologists believe women to be biologically closer to family and structurally delicate. Many people believe that since women only gives birth to a child a certain part of mind is always occupied in those affairs. But, this does not prove that women can not be sound decision makers.
Political attitudes of women are different from men. Survey shows the most persistent gender differences are related to their attitude towards war and peace. Women are more pacifistic than men, less likely to favor defense spending, or to support aggressive policies abroad. Recent interviews of women heads of state reveal that most believe that they are committed to peace than their male counterparts. Women leaders are more interested in the so-called soft issues, including the environment and social welfare. On some measures women are more conservative than men. They more often mobilize for defensive reasons - namely to protect the interests of the family. These tendencies place more focus on policies to support the family and to strengthen local community. Women are far more conservative in one important sense: women are more likely than men to support state regulation of business to protect the consumer and the environment and to assure that the needs of society’s weakest members are addressed.
‘I really do think that women are more cautious in adopting ... decisions (to go to war) .... But I don’t think that the women will ever sacrifice the interests of nation or the interest of state due to.....weakness.’
—–Kazimiera Prunskiene, former prime minister of Lithuania
‘The traditional issues we were steered into - child care, health care, and education - have now become the sexy issues of the decade.’
— Nancy K.Kopp, former speaker pro tem. Of Maryland House of Delegates
‘Do I have an option?’
—Patricia Schroeder, former U.S. representative, when asked by the press if she was running as a woman.
A dubious question is whether women really want equality? Suppose the answer is yes. Then the present society has still to improve ethically, morally and intellectually to accept her as equal in each and every sense. Suppose the answer is no. Then the attitude of women for her has to be uplifted which is really a long process. Now question arises, why all the way through history women have not attained a parallel footing to men? Northern Europe & Nordic countries have enjoyed such type of equality for long and hence are much ahead in terms of women empowerment as compared to the most developed nations of the world. On contrary, in advanced nations like Britain, France and Japan equality rights developed much later. Women identified their voting rights just few years ago. Hence, the attitudes of both men and women have to pass through a decade before they can improve.
Philosophers view women empowerment as a kind of advertisement a country uses to project its justness. In reality the situations are more or less the same. While others say that the situations are improving. Latter can be true but is a time taking process. What matters most is the psychology that a person carries over a long period of time. How can it be changed instantly?
Many mathematical philosophers believe that inequality is must in order to avoid stagnation. It doesn’t matters whether women is dominated or men. According to these intellectuals there must be some differences in order to have a feeling of competition and that’s what is important for progress. If equality is there then there would be no gender biasing and desire to excel would remain.
Above discussion was a factual one. Then is women equality a controversy? Yes off course. Women according to facts are still lagging behind men but a class of society and cult never agrees. It is the result of marketing which nations have done to project empowerment of human rights than women empowerment.
The society is like a wheel, a kind of a closed curve, constantly moving. Every element has its position which constantly changes. A time will come when women would be at the top periphery of the wheel and at that time we shall be talking about men empowerment. Then also the controversies would remain though the reasons may take different forms.
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