QN. Why Gender inequality is inevitable in the society especially Developing Country including Tanzania?

 QN. Why Gender inequality is inevitable in the society especially Developing Country including Tanzania? 

INTRODUCTION

Definitions of key terms

Gender refers to the culturally and socially determined characteristics, values, norms, roles, attitudes and beliefs attributed to women and men through constructed identify of society (Kassimoto T. J 2008).

Gender as grammatical classification of one class roughly corresponding to two sexes and sex lessness (Oxford Dictionary of Current English 1979)

Inequality refers to lack of equality, variableness or uneven ness (Oxford Dictionary of current English 1979)

In other hand inequality we can say is unequal and fair treatment of members of community in provision and access to goods and services required to meet their social needs.

Therefore in a whole the term gender can be defined as unequal and unfair treatment of women and men members of a community in provision and access to goods and services regarded to meet their social needs. It includes unfair treatment before the law, the deniable rights to life by each member of the community and unequal opportunities to social services. Gender inequality is determined by one being born male or female. There are inequalities between males and females. There are inequality between men and women, for example more often women faces violence by their husbands than men, fewer women participates in decision making institutions like the parliament (Kassimoto, T.J 2008).

Reasons as to why gender inequality is inevitable.

Gender inequality is inevitable in most developing countries; taking Tanzania as a case study the following are the reasons as to why gender inequality is inevitable in Tanzania.

Patriarchy system, the most common ideology used in shaping social relations in world wide is patriarch which expresses the totality of women subordination, discrimination and exploitation. The patriarchy ideology has been institutionalized in family, religion, work place and in political arena. In patrilineal ethnic group, the wife’s relationship may belong to the husband’s clan. For example in Tanzania we have the president Hon. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete his wife’s name has change up to the name of her husband. She is now called Mama Salma Kikwete which is wrong. She uses such name due to patriarchy system existing within our society.

Marginalization of women in decision making, the prevailing customs and attitudes enforce the inferior position and status of women. Women are seen to have no ability to engage in independent thinking or to have original ideas. For example women are marginalized in decision making on matter of social importances. The patriarchy system including school, socialization and religion have so negatively influenced women, that the majority feel inferior and consider women who are more assertive to be social deviant. For example in Mwera societies found in southern part of Tanzania men remain as a decision maker after the sells of cash crops (Muhambo, A.N 2009).

The use of women in commercial advertisement, women are also seen as beauty objects and are associated with flowers, angels and angels which explain the use of women in commercial advertisement. In the most cases this action is done by men, but due to lack of employment, low level of education and they are being paid low wages. Another is in advertisements like cooking women are more used which in turn cause children to learn that all cooking works are for women.

Property ownership, women are treated as minor unable to defend themselves. Culture has been used to justify the oppression of women and denial of the rights, contrary to the constitution, law and several political parties’ platforms. Many women especially widows, have lost their property rights because they are treated as minor unable to defend themselves.

Bride price, the custom of paying bride price dowry can facilitate the problem of mistreatment of women especially when large some of property is paid. The system of bride price is increasingly being commercialized and women are less auctioned or exchange for material goods. They are discouraged from seeking divorce for fear of being unable to refund the bride price. For example in Chaga tribe found in northern part of Tanzania and Sukuma tribe found in central Tanzania by which a white lady is married is a high price of not less than two million or a number of tough cows.

Religion influence, religion is based on what you believe, it is often contributes to women marginalized position in society in terms of indoctrination and maintenance of cultural status quo where women are taught that they are subservient to men in both Bible and Koran. For example in bible (waefeso 5-6 line 22) warn women to respect their husbands as they respect the lord. It is also evident that top leadership position in all religion is monopolized by men.

Access to education, enrolment between boys and girls are at parity at the primary school level. More boys are enrolled in higher education than girls who result from cultural norms which specify different perspectives for men and women in relation to education (Kassimoto, T.J 2008).

For example Tanzania education data of 2006 up to 2009 shows that girl’s students were

less enrolled in education than boys as the table bellow illustrates from one to form four.

Form i-iv
YEAR	NUMBER OF BOYS IN %	NUMBER OF GIRLS IN %
2006	13.6%	12.6%
2007	21.7%	19.7%
2008	25.8%	21.2%
2009	30.6%	25.1%

Tanzania education data of 2006 up to 2009 shows that girl’s students were less enrolled in education than boys as the table bellow illustrates from five to form six.

Form v-vi
YEAR	NUMBER OF BOYS IN %	NUMBER OF GIRLS IN %
2006	1.10%	0.9%
2007	1.3%	0.6%
2008	1.6%	1.3%
2009	1.4%	1.5%

Therefore by looking the above tables you can now see that there is no equal enrolment in education between girls and boys (thhp:www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm).

The gender division of labour, this is the tendency of allocating the more and heavy workloads to girls which result into poor performance of a girl. Works allocated to girls are heavy, many and more frequent compared to those allocated to boys. In turn these works train girls to become as a machine for domestic works compared to men who spend more time in sports and games. For example in Nyakyusa society of Tanzania girls are trained to become good in domestic wives expecting that soon after getting married they will be competent in domestic works.

Another is that, a descent women is suppose to keep quite and pay due respect to men however the young he might be, in other societies a young men of seven years has authority over a woman of forty years. When the young men tell a woman not to do a certain thing the old woman will stop doing it because a man has said or instructed.

Not only that, but also socialization process, in most societies especially non western societies, a girl child is socialised to do most of home chores like drawing water, cooking, washing plates, taking care of children and cleaning the environment. While a boy child is socialised to be brave leader and with power trough statements like “you are a boy don’t cry, you are crying like a woman or you are a man you must not admit defeat” therefore this socialization process is began when boys and girls are too young, hence they grew up with the concept of un equal responsibilities between men and women. But if the socialization process, division of labour and access to education would consider gender equality, equal opportunities, equal responsibilities for all men and women, the problem of gender inequality would be possible to eliminate in most developing countries especially in Tanzania.

Also the problem of polity, there is low number of women in official positions compared to men who posses more positions, also in armies there is a less number of women compared to men, even in selection bodies of imposing power (in polity aspect or in army) men tends to have more chances than women which in turn women lacks people who could advocate for their positions hence inequalities prevails.

Criticism

Although constitution and legal safeguards and several empowerments programs and policies emphasize the improvement of women statuses, it seems that some women especially of rural areas are not ready for such change, which means that not only cultural factors gives the inferior status of women of some non western societies. To some extent this inferior status is being contributed by women themselves. They still think that to be dominated by their husbands is their right and it is not fair for them to have equal status with their husbands or to men in general. For example some women when they are appointed to hold a certain responsibilities they prefer to say that “I’m a woman I can’t manage such responsibilities”.

Conclusion

The society also have to make an efforts on improving the status of women by encouraging to contest for political positions and make sure they elect them in order to balance the statuses between men and women. By dong so the status gap between men and women will be reduced.