Cracking the Glass Ceiling: Advancing Women's Rights in Asia

Introduction

The UN has attacked hundreds of conflicts that have passed through mankind, recently a new initiative has been placed to end these issues around the globe. The Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals, were established in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and to ensure peace and prosperity among people. These goals set up objectives from social inclusion, economic growth, and environmental sustainability so that everyone can unite as a group and not as an individual. There are 17 different goals, and each of them attacks a different problem, for example, poverty, climate change, quality education, etc. In this project, we are going to focus on goal number 5 achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls specifically in Asia. Gender equality is a very popular topic that has been growing throughout the years. Women from around the world have started to fight for their rights and for equality for everyone. We are going to be talking about the situation of this issue specifically in Asia, where in some countries women are still being treated as the inferior gender and families believe in patriarchy at all costs. This problem needs to be solved in the following years.

Role of women in Asia

Throughout previous years women were considered insignificant and minor to men. Gender inequality has always been present but throughout the years these inequalities have been reduced. Today in most countries, women have the right to live free from violence, slavery, and discrimination, to have an education, own property, to vote, and to earn a fair and equal wage. However, women from all around the world still experience discrimination and violence and currently in 49 countries, there are no laws protecting women from domestic violence. In Asia, fifteen to sixty-eight percent of women and girls have experienced physical or sexual violence and the estimated cost of gender-based violence is between 1.2 to 3.7 percent of GDP almost the same of what other countries would spend on education.

In the early 2000s, the awareness of diversity started to develop in Asia. Companies across the region started to practice inclusion to have a more balanced combination of diversity and cultural changes. Throughout the years women have been increasing their participation in economic, political, and social growth. Compared to the historical background of women’s inclusion in Asia, there have been a lot of developments and changes nowadays. However, discrimination and violence against women have not been completely achieved, even though there are legal rights and laws that do not permit these actions people still do them. Companies have been focusing for the last two decades on the inclusion of not only women but also con race and age. Even though companies are now applying and developing inclusion there is still a need of progress.

In South Asia, girls struggle to survive and have extreme disadvantages over boys. Because of the extremely low status of women on the region girls tend to lose their education and normally boys have higher education and more privileges. Although both suffer from violence, sexual abuse, and harassment the preference between boys and girls is very notable meaning that girls have less education, lower access to health services, and discrimination. Poverty is a significant factor because it contributes to children not having access to and participation in education. Other factors are ethnicity, disability, and residence. This problem of preferring boys has been reflected in over 80 million missing females in India and China, and a huge increase in the use of sex-selective abortion, meaning that women interrupt their pregnancy because of the sex of the baby, mainly because it is a girl. This causes consequences in society like the dangers of gender imbalance and is very common in countries like China, India, and South Korea. Also, socially this problem influences and makes an impact in others to prefer boys over girls or to abort because of the baby’s sex because they see this as a normal thing to do in their country.

Women representatives in Asia have spoken to the public that they are as experienced of leadership as men with the intention of convincing other females to engage in politics. These positive effects are hardly seen in much of Asia, Women's legislative presence is not helping with the rise of engaging women in politics instead it’s leaving the gender gap persisting in various political activities. In South Asia, women still continue being beneath represented in representative political institutions. In Asia Pacific there is only a single woman in leadership positions for every four men, and in a few countries of East asia, there are only twelve to twenty women leaders for every hundred men.

The income lost worldwide in gender-based discrimination was predicted at $6 trillion, and 7.5% of GDP. In China, the former one-child policy has resulted with gender inequality, leaving extensive numbers of men single principally in rural parts and human trafficking. In Japan and South Korea, Both Women and Men have the same household rights and obligations, but instead, women tend to do the majority of the work and childcare. Asia Pacific is a global engine of growth but significant gender inequality remains, if their economies advance gender equality they could add $4.5 trillion to their collective GDP annually. To achieve this there would need to be an increase on women’s labor force participation rate, the number of compensated hours women work, and a boost in women’s production relative to men’s by adding more women to greater productivity sectors.

In every country across Asia there is a massive gender inequality were women are fighting to destroy a barrier to progress, justice and social stability. UNDP is an organization whose main objective is to achieve the removal of poverty, inequality, and exclusion, it is a support for Asian and Pacific regional and national efforts to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment. The UNDP is working on finishing inequality by focusing on programs and working and ensuring that all effort is taken into account and contributes for women. Gender equality is not only a principal human right, but a necessity to provide peace.

We chose three countries in Asia to compare, Asia has both, one of the top ten countries of having the best in gender equality, but it also has the bottom 5 with the worst in gender equality.

India

India carries number 5 from bottom to top on gender equality of the world. It is not uncommon for women to abort once they find out the sex of the baby is female, making India have a much larger population of men. 29% of the work in India is formed by women, but half of it is unpaid, and almost all of it is informal. Though women make almost 40% of the agricultural work, they control only 9% of the land. Nearly half of women have no access to bank accounts or have savings of their own. In the last years crimes against women have increased, the rate of crimes stands at 53.9%. In the capital city 92% o women have had an experience of sexual or physical violence in public spaces at least once in their lives. Crimes include rapes, dowry deaths, and honor killings. An honor killing is an act of vengeance, usually death committed by family members against a female family member who have divorced, refused to an arranged marriage, being in a relationship disapproved by the family, being the victim of rape, dressing inappropriately, or renouncing a faith. More than 300 honor killings have been reported in the past 300 years. India has a reputation of being unsafe for solo women travelers.

Malaysia 

Malaysia is a country where the rights of women depend on your religion and where they live. The disagreements between conservatism and liberal Islam make the issue bigger. Female genital mutilation is practiced in Malaysia, with more than 90% of the families having undergone the practice. Marriages in Malaysia have restrictions but women do have their rights protected. There is a system called the dowry system and aside from India, Malaysia has removed this. The dowry system is what defines marriages, it consists of a payment from the bride’s family to the groom’s when they are about to get married. If the payment is considered insufficient the husbands use violence as a way of demanding more. It is considered safe for women to travel solo to Malaysia. The only trouble you may find yourself facing is the beggars who come into buses or approach you outside restaurants. Like in any other country, you should be careful at night.

Philippines 

The Philippines has the number 8 place in the world’s best countries on gender equality. The Philippines has the perfect balance, women are often expected to find a balance between career work and homemaking. However, like most countries in the world, there is a huge gap between women's and men's salaries. In 2017 there was research that showed that 67% of all professionals are women, but they earn 8.5% less on average than their male counterparts. The Expanded Maternity Leave Law was implemented in February, this states that all working mothers have 105 days of paid maternity leave credits and an option to transfer up to seven of their paid-leave days to the child’s father. When seeking and males and females are given equal opportunities.

The Asia Foundation is a nonprofit international organization committed to helping and improving women’s lives across 18 countries on Asia. This foundation has transformed thousands of lives by just promoting and making programs that focus on women's opportunities on the economic world. Their goal is to expand opportunities for women through education and vocational training. Providing women with knowledge and skills to learn to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

Global fund for Women stands for sexual and reproductive rights. This campaign work by sharing stories of brave women who are fighting for gender equality, and bringing attention on bigger issues, they rely on the generosity of donors to support critical work. Their vision is a world were all women, girls, and trans people have rights and power. Fighting for equality for over 25 years to promote laws and policies that are grounded for the needs of women.

Conclusion

In various countries, including the US, which supposedly is one of the most advanced and modern countries, there are still inequalities. In April of this year, statistics proved that women earn just 79 cents for every dollar men make. Social inequalities are what us, young people see and live more than anything else, women still get judged for doing what is considered “manly” things like playing, watching or liking tough sports, and drinking beer, but not only women suffer from the social judgments and stereotypes, men also get judged, for dressing up in a certain way, liking certain colors, acting a certain way, or even if they are not tough enough. These kinds of stereotypes lead to instant judgment, like in politics, men have always been socially defined as the strong ones, so many countries believe that having a male ruler will give a stronger image to the country. This is why in most countries (more than a hundred), including México, we’ve never had a female ruler. Right now, less than 15% of the countries are ruled by women, this is the biggest number in history. Gender inequalities have progressed a lot as years pass by, but the goal hasn’t been achieved because most countries still suffer from the consequences, and worst of all, this is a mindset and education problem because people are taught since a very young, that the world just works like that, and it is how it is.