Equality Farce on March 8, 2009

Views of ESL Students

Today I participated in an adult ESL class that contained immigrants from Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.  The 25 adults discussed, in limited English, their culture's view of women's and men's roles in the home.  The sexual division of labor was universal with women overwhelminigly responsible for homemaking and men contributing very little. 

We then got onto the subject of parents' preferences for the sex of their children.  All the students agreed that in their culture boys were a strong favorite over girls.  Finally, we discussed marriage.  The students proclaimed that in their cultures men have the power and decisionmaking roles in marriage -- not women.

This is not a big shock.  Clearly, gender equality is far ahead in the US and Europe compared to the rest of the world.  

Views in WWW.WorldPublicOpinion.Org

What is a shock is today's reporting on global attitudes toward gender equality and the alleged progress women are making.  Consider the poll just released by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) on www.worldpublicopinion.org.  The poll considered attitudes in 22 countries from all over the world and at all levels of development.  It found that:

• Large majorities in all nations favor equal rights for women and most perceive that women have been gaining greater equality;

• Majorities in all nations say that the government should actively work to prevent discrimination against women, and in many nations there is a broad desire for their government to make greater efforts;

• There is robust support for the UN playing an active role in promoting women’s rights;

• Many see discrimination against widows and divorced women in their country.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  Yet the attitudes expressed have nothing to do with reallity.  That being the case, what is the value of putting out such surveys?  That was the question I asked myself as I read.

Peter Singer Comments

Professor Peter Singer, a world renowned bioethicist from Princeton University, asked the same question about the above survey.  Comparing racism and sexism, he finds that "no country openly accepts racist doctrines.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about equal rights for women."

Singer goes on to discuss rhetoric versus reality.  

"In Saudi Arabia, women are not even permitted to drive a car, let alone vote. In many other countries, too, whatever people may say about gender equality, the reality is that women are far from having equal rights.  This may mean that the surveys I have quoted indicate not widespread equality, but widespread hypocrisy. Nevertheless, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, and the fact that racists and sexists must pay this tribute is an indication of some moral progress."

Singer concedes that paying lip service to equality may have some value because "public acceptance of ideas is itself progress of a kind."   He then urges we "close the gaps that still exist between rhetoric and reality."  Singer ends up saying "we should greet the poll results positively."
 

Reality, Please

I would argue the opposite.  On International Women's Day, we need to publicize the reality, not the rhetoric.
 
I find it absurd to applaud scientific polls saying the world is increasingly for gender equality and ignore the reality.  Even my non-English speaking students can attest to the farce of equality.

Happy International Women's Day.