Introduction:
It is undeniable that in the long process of human development, we have indeed experienced a matriarchal society dominated by women. However, the existence time of matriarchal society is relatively short. Especially with the completion of the three major divisions of labor in the late primitive society, the independent development of agriculture, handicraft industry, and Commerce firmly determines the prospect of male-dominated human historical development. In ancient Greece and Rome, citizens with citizenship were limited to adult men, which meant that only men could engage in political activities, hold state public office, and so on. Women play a more auxiliary role in society. They can’t engage in political activities. Even a few smart women such as Cleopatra can only use men to achieve their political goals. Britain in the same period was still in the state of primitive aborigines. In the playful name of the ancient Romans, it was “a barbarian who was naked and covered with blue oil and shouting”. Although the primitive tribes on the British island do reflect gender equality to some extent (for example, there are many female sex soldiers in the British Army), with the more than 400 years of history of Caesar’s two governments in southern Britain in the first century BC and later ruled by the Roman Empire, it has brought more ancient Greek and Roman ideas of gender differences. After all, under the economic conditions of slavery, This physiological difference makes women’s own value can not be fully displayed. From ancient Rome to the eve of the world war, women’s status could not be fully improved in a labor-oriented society. At the same time, with the further development of productivity, industries gradually changed from labor-intensive to science and technology-intensive, and with the awakening of women’s self-position consciousness, the voice of equality between men and women is becoming stronger and stronger, However, the development of everything is a gradual process, and gender discrimination still exists on a large scale. Although some women go out of their homes to participate in social work, women are still discriminated against, which is reflected in the high unemployment rate of women, different pay for equal work between men and women, difficult employment of women, and so on. Up to now, although some women have obtained higher positions in some departments, there is still a gap between their treatment and that of men. Therefore, discrimination against women is very common in today’s workplace.
Before we discuss female discrimination and give some examples, let’s take a look at what female discrimination means. Gender discrimination refers to the prejudice on gender and the unequal treatment of members of one gender to members of another gender. Especially the unequal treatment of men to women. Gender inequality leads to gender discrimination in society. However, it can also be used to refer to any differential treatment caused by gender. Therefore, female discrimination is men’s discrimination and oppression against women in social status, education, workplace, medical treatment, and so on.
Female discrimination case：
This picture comes from the website Black Enterprise. It shows four women complaining about their unfair treatment at their Baltimore Police Station and filing a lawsuit. The reason was that they were discriminated against and retaliated for their public statements, and accused the Bureau of racial discrimination, saying that the basic culture of the Bureau was the abuse of ethnic minorities, especially black women.
This picture was taken at a news conference where the four of them spoke for themselves. One of the black female police officers accused her of being harassed by her peers during maternity leave. After filing a complaint against a white female police officer, another female police officer said that the woman was removed due to promotion and involuntarily transferred. This shows that not only black women are oppressed and discriminated against, but white women also face oppression and discrimination in the workplace.
Although women’s social status has improved in recent years, facts have proved that discrimination against women still exists due to the traditional concepts of our society and the physical differences between men and women, not to mention some minority women.
Research on female discrimination：
Discrimination against women still exists. Ruth David and Adam Blanford’s research shows that female discrimination exists and persisted in the workplace for a long time, which is still the case up to now. They claimed “For the millions of working women in the world’s leading cities for doing business, daily life is often shaped by what they cannot do and how they’re excluded. “(Ruth David & Adam Blenford, 2021)
In the article, Ruth David and Adam Blanford mentioned the case that a police officer in London kidnapped Sarah Everard from the streets of London, raped and murdered the 33-year-old marketing director. The incident triggered an angry uproar, but a sentence on social media said, “She’s just going home.” How heartbreaking it is that a young life is lost and people are indifferent, not only to women but also to life.
They selected the 15 cities based on five indicators: security, mobility, fertility regulations, equality, and wealth (indicators to measure income potential and economic independence), weighted them to form an overall ranking, provided a global perspective on gender inequality, and most of them attracted financial and business workers from other places. For the sake of fairness, each city uses public data for measurement. Recognizing that the data may be fragmented and insufficient, they also surveyed at least 200 working women in each region and weighted their responses equally with the data for each of the five pillars to ensure relative objectivity. This is the form they came up with.
“On average, in the U.K., a woman is killed by a man every three days, according to Femicide Census, which tracks lethal violence against women. Germany faces similar problems.”(Ruth David & Adam Blenford, 2021) This is very terrible.
In addition to the workplace, women also face inequality in education, health care, science and technology, the judicial system, and other aspects. In these fields, women more or less lack the right to speak. Under the same conditions, men always have limited access to better welfare, better medical services, and a better understanding of society.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/best-business-cities-women-ranking-2021/
Female discrimination in education：
Injustice against women still exists in education. African girls who are just 16 years old are pregnant before marriage and waiting to have children at home. This phenomenon seems very common in Africa. A Chinese reporter originally planned to support girls to study hard, train them into translators or help girls open a small shop. The reporter tried to help girls change their lives, but unfortunately, the girl gave up the chance to turn over, It is planned to form a family with local men, have children, and become ordinary African girls. In Africa, it may be normal for a 16-year-old girl to have children, but in our country, 16 is the age of high school and can only be regarded as a child. In short, Chinese journalists go to Africa to try to help African children get out of the cycle of fate, teach girls Chinese and teach girls to cook Chinese food, Sending a video made many Chinese people know this African girl, but everything the reporter paid could not change the impact of the environment!
This phenomenon also exists in relatively remote and backward areas in China. The more backward areas are, the more serious the idea of son preference is. Some girls are deprived of the opportunity to receive education by their parents at a very young age, do farm work at home, leave the opportunity to go to school to their younger brother, have been indoctrinated with the idea that men are superior to women since childhood, and marry their daughters at marriageable age, A girl’s future destiny is determined by her family. Only educated women who have attended school know what the outside world should be like, and will not be trapped in the same place by their family, and will not be able to walk out of the fate of women for generations.
Female discrimination in hospital：
In order to train more male doctors, Tokyo Medical University in Japan secretly manipulated students’ test scores and suppressed female students. Because of the sensitive topic of gender discrimination, it has attracted much more attention than the previous scandal in the school.
Although Tokyo Medical University has conducted an internal investigation, publicly admitted its mistakes, and said that it will completely put an end to such incidents in the future, some Japanese media found that at least 70% of medical schools in Japan have problems similar to the suppression of female candidates by Tokyo Medical University.
In the field of medicine, the unfair treatment of female doctors has triggered continuous discussion. In a column recently published by the Harvard Business Review, two professors Christopher g. Myers and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of medicine and the Institute of patient safety and quality spoke about the incident and cited the research results to explain why discriminating against female doctors would harm patient safety.
There is increasing evidence that women doctors provide better quality care. In February 2017, a study on more than 1.5 million patients published in JAMA internal medicine showed that patients treated by female doctors were less likely to die or be hospitalized within 30 days than those treated by male doctors.
How Discrimination Against Female Doctors Hurts Patients (hbr.org)
How should we deal with female discrimination：
In the 1960s, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that had a far-reaching impact on the change of women’s working environment – the Civil Rights Act. Although the original intention of the civil rights act of 1964 was not to protect women’s rights and interests, it actually sent a weapon for American working women to strive for workplace equality. Gillian Thomas, the senior lawyer of the women’s rights program of the American Civil Liberties Union, contains ten landmark cases in her book based on gender: a law, ten cases, 50 years that have changed the face of American women’s work, which make the provisions of the Civil Rights Act vivid and powerful.
Sexual harassment is still widespread, especially in areas where men are mostly engaged and in some low-income workplaces; E-mail, articles, and social media allow harassers to express their unwelcome concerns in a new and sometimes chilling way. Pay inequality still exists. It is still strange to see a female construction worker or a female firefighter (or a male nurse or a male secretary). For a long time, the representation of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and financial industry is still far from enough, and the number of women at the top of the company is very small.
Even if we are easily frustrated by the staggering inequalities around us, at least we have made some progress than when it was worse in the past. It is because of the women who bravely move forward, stand up and pave the way for the rest of us that the law on equal protection of women’s employment in the United States has been improved. Of course, the solution to these problems requires not only the further improvement of the legal system but also the renewal of social consciousness and cultural concepts.
My advice on female discrimination:
For female discrimination, my advice to women is. First of all, the forerunner corrects his understanding of women’s rights and then counterattacks with a sharp and correct response. Secondly, we should emancipate our minds and do a good job of educating ourselves and our children. Independence and self-reliance. Housewives should also be paid by their husbands. This can be supported by law. One more thing, I hope every woman will be ready before making the choice of childbirth and marriage. Have a clear understanding of the essence of fertility and marriage. For society and men, both men and women should respect and support each other. At the same time, the government and laws have been introduced to solve female discrimination.
References：
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Sun, T., Gaut, A., Tang, S., Huang, Y., ElSherief, M., Zhao, J., … & Wang, W. Y. (2019). Mitigating gender bias in natural language processing: Literature review. arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.08976.
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Derek Major. (2021) Four Veteran black women in the Bal Timore Police Department allege a pattern of racial discrimination, mistreatment, Black Enterprise. Retrieved from https://www.blackenterprise.com/four-veteran-black-women-in-the-baltimore-police-department-allege-a-pattern-of-racial-discrimination-mistreatment/
Ruyssen, I., & Salomone, S. (2018). Female migration: A way out of discrimination?. Journal of Development Economics, 130, 224-241.
Kavaliers, M., & Colwell, D. D. (1995). Discrimination by female mice between the odors of parasitized and non-parasitized males. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 261(1360), 31-35.
Doi, M., Matsuda, M., Tomaru, M., Matsubayashi, H., & Oguma, Y. (2001). A locus for female discrimination behavior causing sexual isolation in Drosophila. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(12), 6714-6719.