Introduction to the Millennium Development Goals
In September 2000 at the beginning of the new millennium the biggest gathering of world leaders came together at the United Nations to create a broad framework to fight poverty in the form of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs.) 172 nations committed to reach these goals in the next fifteen years. fifteen years later in 2015 the era of the MDGs is now ending, and all 193 member states of the United Nations have committed to 17 new Global Goals for Sustainable Development that will reshape global priorities for the next 15 years.
The specific Millennium Development Goal I choose to focus on is the MDG which aims to promote gender equality and empower women. The Indicators or subgoals
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If the world continues at the pace witnessed during the era of the MDG’s, it will take nearly 40 years to reach gender parity in parliaments. It is clear that women have an equal right to be heard and make decisions, they also have much to contribute, new perspectives to bring to parliamentary debate, and are an increased pool of talent that will raise a countries overall productivity. Yet unequal representation is the norm all over the globe. Inequality in gender representation not only persists within governments and political parties but also in global businesses, NGOs and social organisations. If this unequal representation continues it limits and in some cases stops women influencing the information and ideas that shape policies and laws. Globally, women hold less than 22% of seats in national parliaments. As of January 2015, only 10 women have served as heads of state and 15 as heads of government. This power imbalance effects all government and social systems in every country in the world. This means no country is using their full pool of talent and all countries are lacking the influence of one half of the …show more content…
I new there were major problems with women representation in leadership and decision making positions but I was shocked at the extent of the problem. Today women occupy 30 per cent of parliamentary seats in only 20 countries, with none of these countries is in Asia. I realised through my research that unless gender parity can be reached in governance, as well as other influential positions, the overall Millennium Development Goal of gender equality and women’s empowerment cannot be achieved. What I learnt was that the cost of women’s exclusion is much more than just women’s exclusion. Not having women in parliament creates ineffective governance. This leads to poverty, poor education and health of all sexes, domestic violence, social unrest, and institutionalised inequality. Empowering women and increasing our presence in leadership and government positions is the solution for struggling governments. This can disrupt cycles of poverty and disfunction and like we can see in Rwanda completely transform a government. On reflection despite the goal aimed at equity for women the MDGs were silent on many issues at the very heart of gender inequality including reproductive rights, and violence against women. Unless all these issues are addressed the overall goal of gender equity will never be achieved and one way we can insure these
However, Europeans women were very segregated and under man control during the colonial times; but little by little women fight for their rights and become free of man domination. Today the status of women’s civil rights varies dramatically in different countries and, in some cases, among groups within the same country, such as ethnic groups or economic classes. In recent decades women around the world have made strides in political participation, as for example women acquired the right to vote, the right to become part of political issues, the right to marriage who they want, and the right to be free as an individual.
Beginning with the early nineteen hundreds, women from all over the country have bounded together, forming leagues and clubs for equal rights. However, it wasn't until today "at the dawn of the twenty-first century, states and international community can no longer refute the fact that humanity is made up of two sexes, not just one" (Oliveria 26). Why has the woman's move for equality just now started to balance itself out? Well, the answer is quite simple; women are just now being looked at as semi-equals. They are beginning to become corporate executives in businesses, and popular in the field of medicine and law. Women have tried hard to push themselves forward in society to create a balanced and harmonious economy and so far it has been successful. Barriers of all kinds have been broken, well, all except a few, mainly in politics and with the information I have collected I will show why.
As a result of this norm, more feminists who recognize the “systematic disadvantage” (Cahill 206) that women face daily in other countries is the reason why many feminists believe governments should oppose typical gender roles and gender stereotypes by protecting the rights of women. However, culture is always subject to change thus, leading developing countries who have neglected the rights of women to improve due to the global influence of other countries who have gender equality. This, in turn, leads countries to be “forced” to accept feminist agendas who “hold[ing] these patterns… to change them, and thus to change the realities that they produce” (Cahill 208). Not only does gender affect social issues but it also has progressed onto the economic sector for business as well, making gender a multifaceted topic for any
While women were traditionally largely responsible for child care and managing the household, men were more concerned with earning the money in order to support their families. Moreover, it is has been a widely held view, especially by male politicians, that women were not capable of evaluating political matters because they were too emotional and thus, don’t have the required powerfulness (Monique Leijenaar, 1997). Nevertheless, women’s status and integration in the political decision making process has improved continuously since most western-countries introduced women’s right to vote. Consequently, in some of these states women’s underrepresentation is not a numerical problem anymore; instead it is only a problem of the representation of their interests and values on the political agenda. This can be illustrated by the example of Denmark where women have a majority in six councils. However, women should be given more power in order to create a world in which power is exercised equitably for the benefit of
...ntries women are restricted in where they can and cannot work. Most commonly, they seem to be restricted from jobs in which physically taxing tasks are the norm. This is no doubt due to the stereotype that women are fragile and weak and must be protected (a stereotype that can hold true, but that is not always true). This also seems to be consistent across culture. However, despite the fact that these restrictions were enacted to protect women, they place heavy limitations on women’s opportunities. Furthermore, these are not the only injustices many women across the world face. However, the only way to fight these injustices is to increase women’s participation in politics, as discussed in the UN report from 2008. It is absolutely vital that women be able to actively participate in politics without letting gender discrimination and stereotypes get in the way.
The equality between men and women is an integral part of human rights, it is also a prerequisite for democracy and social justice. Any democratic state seeks to promote gender equality in all spheres of life. Despite the creation of a strong legal framework to ensure the principle of equality of both sexes, the gap between men and women about their capabilities remains significant (Pomeroy, 72).
...action with others… especially men. This supplies final substantiation of the authors' argument, that women continue to be oppressed by their male-dominated societies. It is a bold undertaking for women to ally and promote a world movement to abandon sexist traditions. Although I have never lived in a third world or non-Westernized country, I have studied the conditions women suffer as "inferior" to men. In National Geographic and various courses I have taken, these terrible conditions are depicted in full color. Gender inequality is a terrible trait of our global society, and unfortunately, a trait that might not be ready to change. In America we see gender bias towards women in voters' unwillingness to elect more females into high office, and while this is not nearly as severe as the rest of the world, it indicates the lingering practice of gender inequality.
A major way in which women have a lower status in society than men can be seen through women in politics. There are three major key areas of women in politics which focus of these points these consist of the attitudes towards women in politics, how women are represented thought the eyes of the law and through their occupational activity. It is not unknown that women are drastically misrepresented in Irish politics today. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO, 2013) the amount of women TDs stand at 25 compared to 141 male TDs. That roughly estimates out that just 15 per cent of Dáil member are women. This major misrepresenta...
United Nations, (2013) the millennium development goals report 2013 [ONLINE] United Nations. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/publications/mdgs-report-2013.html [Accessed on 26 December 2013]
participation of women in the decision making process is an indicator of development of a democratic
The debate regarding gender identities in politics is today a protruding aspect in our society. Both the domestic and international gender roles and norms are central in the developments in the field of political science and International Relations. The inclusion of women into formal politics through quota systems is one of the key issues in focus for both the current societal debate as well as much of the academic work in the field. This essay will focus on the arguments supporting and opposing both constitutional/legalized and voluntary quotas systems aiming to increase the percentage of women in national parliaments and what implications these quotas systems have on political life and the society as a whole.
In the year 2000 the United Nations set out a goal to stop hunger poverty and unfair living to people of the world not just the United States. This idea was called the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Upon taking on a task such as this the UN wanted to break down goals in sections of eight to better categorize them to use every resource they had to make this plan possible. Not every catgeroy had the same plan put in place and for that exact reason these goals where not something to be done over night, hence how the name of the idea started with millennium. The UN has also been known for their work to gather its members and countries as one to work to accomplish its goals of maintaining peace and security, they wanted to protect human rights by providing humanitarian assistance, and assisting economic and social development throught the world. This gives us a better idea of what MDG project is for and how it was created.
...n’s) social opportunities for good health and for participating in public life, it limits their ability to contribute to a country’s social and economic advancement. Moreover, given that women’s preferences and priorities can be different from men’s, gender issues that undermines women’s ability to participate in, say, government decision-making could mean that some significant public goods that would enhance society’s well-being may not get priority. Finally, the relative silence on gender inequality in society and in the media underlines the failure of transparency guarantees on this front. It can also be argued that, even if the state is trying to enhance such instrumental
...ds & Gelleny, 2007). Moreover, the status of women is independent on policy adjustments in developing countries. Governments in developing countries should organize an economically and political stable environment, to be economically attractive (Maxfield, 1998 as cited in Richards & Gelleny, 2007). Other critics state governments are forced to cut expenditures in education and social programs. This phenomenon especially affects women (Ayres and McCalla, 1997, as cited in Richards & Gelleny, 2007). Since the public sector is one of the main employers of females, women are often the most disadvantaged by governmental efforts to cut expenditures in the public sector (Hemmati and Gardiner, 2004, as cited in Richards & Gelleny, 2007). As a result, women will become unemployed and unable to expanded education among themselves or their children. (Richards & Gelleny, 2007)
Some of the goals are doing well, such as primary schooling. However the “reducing hunger by half” goal is not. The chart shows that two regions of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, have high hunger with only fair progress. The rest of the regions they included have moderate hunger with very little progress. This proves that the methods used to accomplish the MDGs were ineffective and insufficient (in text citation- progress chart). The fact that the Sustainable Development Goal pertaining to hunger includes food security, nutrition, and agriculture is an achievement in itself because “it acknowledges the crucial role played by food-based approaches to nutrition” (in text citation- Goal 2). Improvements in agriculture can ultimately lead to ending hunger because people will have access to more nutritious foods and farmers will be able to produce more food. The UN said the purpose of the Millennium Development Goals was “to shape a broad vision to fight poverty and combat numerous issues hampering development progress” (in text citation- chart). This claim is contradicting because the only goal regarding hunger was to reduce it by half. Perhaps one of the reasons this goal wasn’t fully accomplished was because the UN didn’t incorporate other components such as nutrition and agriculture into the Millennium