Me and The Issues

Gender and Family

Discrimination against Woman

For years, women have been viewed as the weaker sex. They are seen as less capable compared to men and have suffered different kinds of discriminations. Women in less developed countries may face violence or be force into sex trade. Women in developed nations are luckier but still, they are usually paid less compared to men and do not have equal job opportunities. Up till now, there have been several organizations like Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and National Organization for Women (NOW) working hard to achieve gender equality, but still the problem persists.

Song of an African Woman

I have only one request.
I do not ask for money
Although I have need of it,
I do not ask for meat . . .
I have only one request,And all I ask is
That you remove
The road block
From my path.

From the Acholi poem, Song of Lawino
Okot p’Bitek

In Africa, around 54 percent of girls do not have the chance to enter primary school education, and for those who do, very small number can even reach the fifth grade (The Hunger Project). This shows the serious problem of gender inequality in the third world countries.

Women in developed nations on the other hand, suffered a different form of discrimination. They are indeed given opportunities to attain high education level and to get a good job but they get lower pay compared to men. On top of that, they have to manage family and household problems (doing housework, taking care of children etc). Despite doing more than what a man is doing, generally they are still viewed as the weaker gender, especially in more conservative societies like Japan.

I feel that the root of such problems is that there is no common understanding that as men and women, we are each capable of different things, neither one is more superior to the other. We are indeed different and because of these differences, one cannot do without the other. Just like both man and woman are required to produce a child, a society without women will be impossible to survive and the same goes for one without men. We each have different abilities, like men are indeed stronger physically while women are more sensitive and better with the details. Due to such differences, we complement with each other.

We should also recognise the fact that absolute equality is impossible. Two things that are different can never be equal. Certain jobs will prefer women while certain jobs will need men, and the fact that men can never give birth to children enhances the fact that absolute equality can never be achieve.

Also, it is unavoidable that women are deemed as the weaker sex in the third world countries. Due to the fact that they are not as developed yet, most of the people do laborious tasks to earn a living, hence women, being weaker than men physically will be on the losing end. They will be seen as less ‘useful’ as they will not be as productive as men doing such jobs and thus are expected to stay at home to feed the children. To solve the problem of gender inequality in such countries like Africa, we will have to first solve the problem of poverty and undevelopment. It is only when the conditions of their lifestyle improve will the people receive more education and hence learn to be concern about issues like gender equality. With hunger at hand, who will care if women and men are equal or not?

Reference:

1: http://www.thp.org/women/status.htm - Web Source

Labour Division –Good Or Bad?

Work

Work, is an essential part of our live. We work, to earn a living; we work, to apply what we have learnt. Most importantly, work is what that keeps a country’s economy moving.

Work is a complicated concept. In order to work, we have to possess the necessary skills for the job. However, it is hard, if not impossible for us to possess the knowledge for all kinds of jobs, most of us tend to specialise in a certain sector, hence the division of labour.

In the division of labour, workers are separated into different sectors. For example, in a factory certain groups of workers are in charge of the manufacturing of the goods while another will be in charge of the packaging. Even in schools, we have different departments of teachers teaching different subjects. Division of labour makes production more efficient. As mentioned in the lecture, capitalist economy relies on division of labour, and it will bring prosperity to the whole society if everyone is engage in production.

However, as always, there is a conflicting view to this. It is said that labor division also creates solidarity. People of the same jobs will tend to be group together, hence creating the solidarity. I believe that this is true. Work takes up most of our time, and it is no surprise that we will tend to interact more with people who work together with us. It is argued that this would result in class consciousness, which can be linked to last week’s lecture on class and inequality.

Free Trade

The case of inequality is worsened by free trade. Under free trade, countries are allowed to seek the cheapest cost of labour from the less developed countries.

Multinational Corporations (MNCs) from developed countries, seeking the lowest cost of labour often choose to move their manufacturing process to less developed countries like China and Vietnam. The workers there earn minimum wages while the MNCs get higher profits due to them. In a way, this can be considered as exploitation. This will also result in the widening of the income gap between the developed countries and the less developed ones. On top of that, as stated in the lecture, child labor is the cheapest form of labor, unknowingly, the MNCs have encouraged child labor.

Furthermore, several industralised countries are also treating the third world countries as their dumping ground, choosing to dump their waste in these countries. An example of such a country will be Albania, who accepted a shipment of expired pesticides from Germany (American University). Again, the industralised countries have exploited the less developed ones. Also, due to the fact that these developing grounds act as the manufacturing grounds to the MNCs, environmental problems like air pollutions will be worsened.

Thus, unknowingly, these MNCs have worsened the social problems of these countries.

The idea of free trade is supposed to benefit the countries, to allow their economies to prosper. However, just like globalization, it is a double edged sword. It indeed allowed prosperity in countries, but only the developed nations. Once again, the third world countries, who are the ones in need, are being left out of the route to prosperity. Their conditions have yet to improve, and even in some cases, worsened. So is free trade fair trade? I do not think so. The rules and regulations of free trade should be review to protect the interests of the third world countries. One good example will be the banning of OEDC toxic waste exports in 1997. There should be limited exploitation of cheap labour in the developing countries, especially when it involves child labor, which should be completely removed.

Reference:

1: http://www.american.edu/TED/projects/tedcross/xwast31.htm – Web Source

Class and Inequalities

Class and inequalities has always been a great problem in our society. One good example will be the caste system that had existed in several countries like India and Europe, where the citizens are being separated into different classes. Other than a fixed syste,inequality can always exist in the form of religions and races, like during Hitler’s rule, the Jews are being considered to be of the lowest class and had been looked down upon by most of the other people. However, this form of class and inequalities have died down now in most of the countries.

In the modern society now, class and inequalities exist in the form of the rich and the poor. It exists not only between different countries but even within the country. As a country develop and improve, the rich and educated will work on their resources, resulting in greater wealth for them, while the poor will remain as they are. Hence the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Just like in America, the gap between the rich and the poor increased at the same speed as the economic growth.

I feel that one of the main causes of such a problem will be capitalism which was being considered as the most efficient mean of production. It indeed helped to increase production but at the same time widened the gap between the rich and the poor. However, is there another better way of production? A Jewish philosopher, Karl Marx saw the problem of capitalism and argued that the most important mean of production was knowledge. That was where communism was developed from. However,I feel that despite the fact that he did manage to successfully see the problem of capitalism, the idea of communism also had a problem, and an even greater one. Communism did help to close the gap between the rich and then poor, but due to the fact that wealth was being distributed equally among the people, most of them had no motivation to work. This was because their hard work did  not equal to greater wealth. In the long term, this would then slow down the economy of the country.

I feel that the problem of class and inequalities is something that cannot be completely solve and will continue to exist in our society in different forms. It is impossible to prevent the rich from getting richer as this would hinder the economic growth of the country, hence the only way will be to encourage the poor to work harder. Other than granting financial grants to them, the government should also encourage them to get educated, just like how Singapore is encouraging life-long learning. With education, they would then have a more equal chances to get better jobs that grant them better salaries. It is better to teach them to fish rather than to give them fish. Only when the poor gain the ability to earn their own living will the gap between the rich and the poor close up.

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