Global Gender Inequality: Women's Rights and Feminized Poverty

Introduction: Women's Global Inequality

Although women have seen substantial progress in the United States due to the women's rights movement, globally women still struggle to attain parity with men, particularly in the resource-poor developing world. Although women have assumed politically prominent leadership positions in the U.S., Germany, Canada, and other major national powers, females have broadly struggled to achieve parity in the world community as a whole. Globally, women make up "just 17% of parliamentarians" and "over the past 25 years only 1 in 40 women were peace agreement signatories" (Inequality Statistics, 2014, Womankind Worldwide).

There are also significant health disparities regarding women's health. For example, "99% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries, with women continuing to die of pregnancy-related causes at the rate of one a minute," and while "women produce up to 80% of food in developing countries" they are "more likely to be hungry than men, and are often denied the right to own land" (Inequality Statistics, 2014, Womankind Worldwide). Helping women is a vitally important issue given that women make up the majority of the world's population — yet remain disenfranchised and denied their basic rights. Improving women's well-being is critically tied to improving literacy, improving health and sanitary conditions, and reducing overpopulation.

Women have less access to adequate food and high-paying work, and are often politically and economically disenfranchised, resulting in what is commonly called the "feminization of poverty." They lack the tools to meaningfully improve their condition. "Of all the people in the world living in poverty, 70% are women. They are also more often the primary caretakers of children, which further drains their resources. Women also constitute the majority of the 1.5 billion people living on $1 a day or less" (Abbate, 2010).

The term "feminized poverty" refers not only to the immediate financial disadvantage of women relative to men, but also to the structural inequalities that make it so difficult to remedy their circumstances. "Being naturally classified as caretakers, women have often been corralled into specific lines of work, such as teaching, caring for children and the elderly, domestic servitude, and factory work such as textile production. These kinds of jobs lack stability, security, and higher income" (Abbate, 2010). By virtue of being perceived as caretakers, women are relegated to a status in which they are seen as automatically second-class citizens. Women who are single mothers are the most vulnerable to falling into poverty (Feminization of Poverty, 2014, Boundless).

Violence against women is still tacitly normalized in many regions of the world. "Recent global prevalence figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime," and "on average, 30% of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by their partner" (Violence Against Women, 2013, WHO). Women are also more likely to be victims of violent crime, including sex- and employment-related crimes such as human trafficking, where women are often coerced into entering the sex trade or forced to work for slave wages.

The Feminization of Poverty

The world over, women and girls remain prone to exploitation, including trafficking that forces them into hard labor or sexual slavery. These conditions deny them opportunities to access education and participate in public life, including politics. In some communities, rape is even used as a weapon of war. Creating an effective public policy response to these realities is challenging given the profound cultural and economic obstacles that stand in the way of change. Improving access to education is seen as a critical tool of female empowerment, as is ensuring that women have control over their fertility — a measure that is also vital to stopping the spread of AIDS, a disease from which women suffer disproportionately in the developing world, where condom use is still not widely accepted in many areas.

In terms of maternal health, women face challenges arising directly from deaths related to pregnancy. In developing countries, maternal mortality remains high, and many of these deaths are preventable. Governments and public health agencies have organized efforts to eliminate needless maternal deaths, but these initiatives have little chance of success when one considers the profound societal inequalities, lack of education, and lack of protection of women's rights that create deeper barriers preventing women from benefiting from such well-intentioned programs.

Improving access to education remains one of the most effective tools for female empowerment. Educated women are better equipped to make informed decisions about their health, fertility, and economic opportunities. When women are given control over their reproductive choices, communities benefit through lower rates of maternal mortality, reduced poverty, and stronger economic participation. These interconnected goals underscore the importance of a holistic approach to women's empowerment — one that links health outcomes, education, and legal rights.

In Muslim-majority countries, efforts to empower women have also faced significant obstacles, as both reformers and traditionalists have been reluctant to abandon entrenched views. Even in developed countries, certain interpretations of Islam have allowed misogynistic norms to persist. Women are generally prohibited from undertaking many activities without their husband's approval, such as traveling outside their hometown. Other discriminatory norms include the principle that a woman's witness testimony counts as half that of a man's, and that a woman's inheritance must be half that received by male heirs. During menstruation, women are also barred from fulfilling certain religious obligations because they are considered "unclean." These traditionalist views are perpetuated through social practice, and in some jurisdictions Sharia law continues to codify the notion that women are inferior to men.

Violence Against Women

Some scholars have argued that the fact that women are granted some inheritance and recognized as witnesses — however unequal — represents a historical advancement relative to earlier Islamic practices. These scholars also contend that most Muslim communities involve women in their rituals and cultural obligations to a greater degree than other communities, suggesting that Islam has made meaningful strides toward gender equality (Frias, 2008). They further point out that while women were traditionally barred from holding political office, this is no longer universally the case, as evidenced by countries such as Pakistan, Turkey, and Bangladesh, where women hold key political positions (Lagerlöf, 2003). However, whichever side of the argument one considers, it is evident that substantial effort is still required to achieve full gender equality in Muslim-majority countries and communities.

There is growing recognition that efforts to promote gender equality cannot be sustained by sidelining the broader population. The population is key to ensuring that such efforts endure. People must be educated and provided with equal opportunities for work, and they need to be included in decision-making around strategies to promote gender equality, in order to produce sensible and feasible laws (Noia, 2002). These laws should focus on equal pay for equal work, equal opportunities for education and employment, and the safeguarding of women's rights. Sustained cultural change in attitudes toward women is equally essential.

Gender equality is widely understood to be hindered by the obstacles women face in their participation in both public and private life. They are prevented from equal participation in decision-making both in terms of the decisions available to them and the opportunities they have to exercise agency. With the ever-present threat of rape, domestic violence, and practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), it is clear that women are still frequently excluded from meaningful discussions about gender equality (Norgaard & York, 2005).