Our society is structured according to already predetermined dimensions. Especially significant is gender. Our gender is an element that can not only define differences but also create advantages and disadvantages (unequal society 148). It therefore becomes essential to consider what gender refers to. Gender is best defined as a way of classifying people based on socially agreed distinctions that are associated with male and female anatomy (gender history 153). Gender differentiation is evident in all societies and in particular in Australia with men and women seen to take on different social roles (gender 384). This has resulted in a significantly unequal spread of life chances (gender 384). Thus creating a category of analysis that inequalities flow from (gender history 154). Differences in opportunity between men and women therefore become evident. This historically established prejudice against women. However, the women’s liberation movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s broke barriers with women gaining more power in respect to education and employment (gender 383). Despite such breakthroughs, elements of gender inequality can still be seen in Australian society. This is interesting as most Australian’s have an assumption that we are an egalitarian society that does not encourage injustice and believes everyone should have a ‘fair go’ (collective identity 167). Through the exploration of the Australian labour force and harassment, violence and discrimination towards women we can see that gender equality is growing, but still evident, in Australian society.
The participation of females in the labour force is a contemporary issue, which has seen much discussion and debate. This is because females have sought to overcome inequality...
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...in the form of part-time work, which has limited entitlements. In addition, the amount of violence directed towards women decreased from 7.1% in 1996 to 5.3% in 2012 (abs personal 2012). However, discrimination against women is still prevalent highlighting the fact that gender equality is still present in Australian Society. Gender equality is a contemporary issue, although growing, is still present in Australian society. Gender equality will not continue to grow simply because there is an increase of women in the labour force and the amount of violence towards them has decreased (human rights online one). It is complex and requires a shift in the attitudes and norms that lead to inequality (human rights online one). Therefore a commitment is required from all Australians to promote an egalitarian society that does not encourage injustice (collective identity 167).
Yet, it was generally established that women are proceeding to develop an equivalent opportunity to their male counterparts, such as the example of Australia’s first female prime minister in 2010. This case displays the mounting support towards women within Australian society. With further emphasis of women in society, Australian women may soon become equal to their male counterparts, and then allowing equal power among the
Throughout the world, in history and in present day, injustice has affected all of us. Whether it is racial, sexist, discriminatory, being left disadvantaged or worse, injustice surrounds us. Australia is a country that has been plagued by injustice since the day our British ancestors first set foot on Australian soil and claimed the land as theirs. We’ve killed off many of the Indigenous Aboriginal people, and also took Aboriginal children away from their families; this is known as the stolen generation. On the day Australia became a federation in 1901, the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, created the White Australia Policy. This only let people of white skin colour migrate to the country. Even though Australia was the first country to let women vote, women didn’t stand in Parliament until 1943 as many of us didn’t support female candidates, this was 40 years after they passed the law in Australian Parliament for women to stand in elections. After the events of World War Two, we have made an effort to make a stop to these issues here in Australia.
As the issue is examined from the view of social justice, it appears that women are still not at the equal level that Mills proposed in this bill in Parliament. While women are entitled to the basic human rights of employment, land and business ownership and voting, there remains an inequality in expectations for an adult female. These expectations are garnered from long-standing traditional views held by a large portion of society that will take many years to eradicate.
The critical rank for reducing gender inequalities should be education, labor force participation, and lastly, wages. There are obvious differences between men and women whether it’s anatomically, financially, and so forth. The gender inequalities women face compared to men is alarming and saddening. Gender stereotypes reinforce gender inequalities because stereotypes can often be internalized which results in biases against either sex. These biases against a person can result in negative results. Gender inequality has been within our society for a long time especially amongst women.
Gaze, G (2009) ‘The Sex Discrimination Act after 25 years: What is its role in eliminating gender inequality and discrimination in Australia?’, Insights, vol.7,p.13-17, viewed 5 October 2011, .
Thornton, Margaret. "Feminism And The Changing State: The Case Of Sex Discrimination." Australian Feminist Studies 21.50 (2006): 151-172. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 May
The narrow view of the world that we often experience prevents us from even engaging for or against ideals that we would take on, given the chance. We often become deaf to opportunity, however. While it may seem we are complicit in many of the injustices that our society perpetuates, often times we are not even aware of the issue. An uninformed decision will be as bad as no decision. Many problems exude from the state of our social values. The role that women play in society is slowly changing from that of a ‘nurturer’ to any role a woman strives for. Progress has come through much pain and the hope is one day there will be real equality in the results of our societies spoken and unspoken laws.
Australia has always been portrayed as masculine, heterosexual, and white. For example, the national image that Australians portray are stereotyped as the ‘frontier explorer’, the ‘bushman’, the ‘larrikin’, the ‘digger’, the ‘workingman’, the ‘breadwinner’, or the ‘globetrotting business tycoon’ (Carter 14). Men represent Australia, whereas women are seen in an inferior and domestic light, for example, they are seen as mothers and housewives (Carter
In the majority of early cultures and societies, women have always been considered subservient and inferior to men. Since the first wave of feminism in the 19th century, women began to revolt against those prejudicial social boundaries by branching out of the submissive scope, achieving monumental advances in their roles in civilization. However, gender inequality is still prevalent in developed countries. Women frequently fall victim to gender-based assault and violence, suffer from superficial expectations, and face discriminatory barriers in achieving leadership roles in employment and equal pay. Undoubtedly, women have gained tremendous recognition in their leaps towards equal opportunity, but to condone these discrepancies, especially
Gender inequality specifies to unequal treatment or approach of individuals based on their gender. It occurs from differences in socially constructed gender roles as well as biologically through chromosomes, brain structure, and hormonal differences. In 2006, the World Economic Forum introduced The Global Gender Gap Index. It is a framework that captures the magnitude and capacity of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress. The index measures national gender gaps on political, economic, education and health based criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups, over time. The rankings are mainly designed to create a greater awareness among a global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them.
In all societies around the world, women are treated as if they are a minority group, just like any racial or ethnic group that is out of the norm. The justification for considering women as a minority group and the existence of sexism becomes clear through the examination of social indicators, including education, employment, and income.
ABORIGINESE SOCIAL AFFILIATION OF DOMINANT GROUP Social disparity and other forms of taste are about and ongoing issues with multiple modern workplaces worldwide. Although many counties are aware of the inequality which aims to ensure fair participation by it aborigines people. It is rare to find countries that still value the culture of their pasts. In particular, Australia appreciate their heritage and the original people who were there before the British came to colonize the land. Australia is a continent and is located dividing the two oceans of Indian and Pacific in the Southern Hemisphere.
With the development and progress of the era, and the established of the feminism, women gradually got their due diligence and power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Not as the subordinate of their husband or father, women in the society could attend the management level and have the power to control over others, which absolutely including man as their subordinate, in government, companies and other places. Diversity in gender quotas actually has positive effects to the company, but the ideology of Feminism itself, have both merit and weakness. This essay will use feminist to analyze the rationality of women representation increasing in company boards, in the background of Australia. Introduce Feminism and the current situation
There is clear progress in job opportunities for women in recent years, “women have climbed to the top of many a corporate ladder, IBM and General Motors being just two examples. They were recently approved to serve in all military combat jobs” as well (Crary). Taking into account, however, “globally women earn 24% less than men” and “in many make-dominated domains, women’s strides have been slow paced and, even then, often greeted with resentment” more job opportunities does not mean harassment and discrimination in the workplace has disappeared (Crary). But, progress is not about reaching a goal, it is about getting closer to it. We have made large amounts of progress over many years, even if it is simply that “the percentage of women in parliament has doubled in the last 20 years,” and we have passed protection laws such as the “Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women [which] provided a framework for action on the pandemic” (Infographic).
The opportunities available to women in the market are not as diverse as those presented to men. Still, the construct of gender ideology influences how employers undertake economic decisions, and that is why companies still have jobs labelled as “men’s work” and occupations categorized as “women’s work.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of gender differences in labor markets is undeniably true, specifically with respect to salary gap between men and women, occupational gender segregation of men and women, and the challenge that women face in terms of juggling their time and attention between their career and family life. There is no denying that the salary of men is far more than that of women’s. In the Great Britain (and other parts of the globe), there are pieces of evidence which suggest that gendered practices of participation in the labor force still have significant impact on the economic security level that men and women develop over the course of their lives (Warren 606).