Causes Of Gender Inequality In Latin America And How It Reflects On The Lives Of Women

Women are the core of all things involved with life since they are the first person that we see as we are born. They tend to our needs at any moment’s notice, their love is definitely unconditional, and they are who we seek for in our time of need. Sometimes we take them for granted and we leave them feeling unappreciated for many different reasons. But they are the source of what starts life and the reason why many people even exist.

Yet when it comes to them and listening to what they need, people do not listen to them, and instead turn from hearing anything they have to say. In different parts of the world, they have been seen as temples and they are unable to express themselves. In this paper, it will discuss the oppression of women in ways that they suffer from expressing themselves sexually, mentally, and emotionally. It will also cover the struggles that they face in their personal relationships dealing with physical and emotional violence.

For over the course of several decades, women have always been seen as the caretakers and the ones responsible for taking care of the children at home. Men had an entirely different roles as they were seen as the breadwinners and they needed to work extremely hard to provide for them.

Machismo is a term that basically means that a man has major pride in themselves and they do not allow for anyone to take over. They usually feel that they have a need in order to protect and provide for their families, but while this may be seen as the usual it has left women to suffer greatly. Women have suffered from being able to say what they feel and think because of the consistent belief that they need to stay quiet and stay home to take care of the house. In the United States, it took several decades for women to be able to hold a place in office, and also was very close to having a female president.

Times have been changing and people have been allowing for women to show that they are able to make changes and are able to show that they are capable of doing what a man can. But unfortunately, in different parts of Latin America it is not the same for those women since they are constantly being told what they can and cannot do. Also, in the United States they are more able to express themselves in any way they can as long as it was nothing too indecent. Yet, in Mexico women are unable to make their own decisions on what they do with their own bodies. Their sexual freedom is made up of two factors which is their reproductive rights, and the lack of being able to say something about the violence they receive from their significant others. They are also unable to say what happens when they do want to conceive, and how they will go about their own well-being. People say that if women do not have some sort of control over the way they go about their sexual freedom, they can be seen as unhealthy and unable to be taken care of.

Violence is a major factor and is an extremely high risk for women who are involved in their relationships because it can lead to them to being beaten to death. Also, a lot of the violence that occurs between couples mainly go unreported due to fear from women about anyone finding out about what is going on. In Mexico, just about an overwhelming percentage of women who are older than the age of 15 suffered from violence by the person they are currently dating, and about another 60 percent have admitted having experienced violence from their significant others at least once in their lifetime. These types of violence that they go through end up defining who and what a woman exactly is, for example the factors that correlate with going through this type of violence. Most of the women who suffer from this violence usually have factors of how old they are, which religion they practice, and if they have any sort of education.

The reason why these factors play a role is because the younger a female is the more likely they get involved with someone. They are more likely to listen to a man’s game and will more likely end up falling faster for someone, than a woman who is older and wiser. Also, for their religion, they may practice one that shows they need to be respected and value themselves, so they are less likely to fall into those traps. And for education, it also depends on how much they have been taught because then they will be less likely to fall for games. All of these factors correlate with the amount of domestic violence a woman will either receive or maybe none at all.

In Latin America, their gender inequalities are a lot more prominent since they think much differently from the United States. A women’s life depends a lot on the cultures of machismo which basically means a man’s pride in themselves to take care of one’s home. Women have always been seen as the caretakers, so they are less likely to have a chance to speak up for themselves. Due to these types of ideas, women are not allowed to really think for themselves because they have to be under a man’s wing. They are forced to do as a man say’s even when it comes to their own personal decisions. Also, with religion, the Church as placed values on when a woman can marry, and when they are able to express themselves in a sexual manner. When they are young, they are usually taught to save themselves for after marriage, and they are also told that they need to bear children. Most of the time, weddings would be arranged for them as to their parents choosing as well. Sexual freedom is the basic freedom of a woman being able to choose when they feel like having sexual relations, being able to choose whether they want to keep the child or not, or just to be able to have control over themselves.

Due to the lack of sexual freedom, it has led to many unwanted pregnancies, unprotected and even forced sex, and not being able to use any sort of contraceptives to protect themselves. It has also led to a spread of sexually transmitted diseases since men only see women as sexual objects. Being unable to express yourself especially being able to make your own decisions about your body can wreak havoc on women. Unfortunately, due to the ideas and constant push for religion has shaped people’s mind to believe that they cannot do certain things because of those beliefs. Now while they are oppressed with sexual freedoms they are also suffering from working since they deal with constant inequalities from men.

Now while women suffer from being oppressed from their sexual freedoms, they also suffer from gender inequalities in Latin America. They have what is called the feminist economy which shines light on the women who do not get equal pay from doing the same job as a man. A feminist economy also explores other factors to understand the economic system as a whole in ways to see how it functions with the power between people. The feminist system also looks at other factors such as seeing how women and men are treated, and focuses on the pay they receive as well. They aim to be able to provide and fight for human life and makes sure that everyone receives the same treatment and ability to be able to provide for themselves and others. Feminism has also reconstructed the idea of what work actually means and what it entails to being a woman.

As defined for women, work is everything that requires to being a woman plus the other daily activities that require much needed attention. Also within the feminist economy, they also believe that there should be a share, and a distribution of the amount of work women have to do in and outside of the house. Just because they are seen as mothers does not mean that they should be the only one’s worrying about being able to provide for the family. In the workforce in Latin America, they have divided women among the type of work they do, and how much they end up receiving for how much they have completed.

These workforces have shown several ways that they have discriminated against women such as being able to give them more workdays, and give them a low set of skills to be able to complete tasks so they will not be paid as much. Now due to this unfair paid amount of work it has led to many women struggling to be able to make ends meet for their families.

Due to the excessive amount of unfair work and rights, women have made alliances to be able to fight for their own rights. The alliance is solely focused on being able to make people understand the basic concept that women in Central America make up a good amount of the labor force. Yet they lack rights that are able to protect them if they were to get injured, also work in very poor and severe conditions, and they are marginalized by being given less pay for the amount of work they do. So these women who are built in with the alliances push together to make better lives for each other and themselves.

Now while they currently suffer to have even their most basic needs met, they also suffer from having a sexually transmitted disease. HIV has become a widespread epidemic especially in third world countries because they do not have the same access or rights as people in the United States. Women are not given the same access to medical help which has led to so many women having to suffer to fight it on their own. As stated in the article, about 2.1 million people had the virus of which almost more than half happened to be women who carried the disease. Yet they have no sort of access to be able to receive treatment as promptly as they need it.

Women have suffered immensely in the United States but in Latin America it is a lot worse and even though they have pushed for a better life. To this day, they still push for their own rights and be able to fight for what they truly believe in. Yet it is not always that easy because their ideals of how life should be ran still stands in the way of change. Change has never been easy for anyone but it is the only way they will be able to advanced and move forward.