There are a very serious systemic injustice which is sexism—gender discrimination. In China, I’ve heard of many families prefer son than daughter. The son preference in China was a very serious problem. There are forms of surnames in China which is children should take their father’s last name. Therefore, many parents hope to carryon their family trait and preferred to have a son. They believe that boys have more value than girls. Many families, if the first child is a daughter, will continue until they have a son. The sex selection in favor of boys is a serious violation of women’s human rights and injustices against women. “There is huge pressure on women to produce sons which not only affects women’s reproductive decisions, with implications for their health and survival, but also puts women in a position where they must perpetuate the lower status of girls through son preference.” According to a statement issued by UN Women. Nevertheless, with the development of the Chinese economy, the son preference phenomenon has gradually disintegrates in urban area, but some rural area still persist having a boy.
Despite the son preference discrimination against women, Women also face a lot of discrimination in the workplace. With the Same experience and qualification, many companies would rather hire man than women especially when a woman is planning to have a child within a year, Companies believe that Women need maternity leave which reduces productivity. There are also devaluing women’s views or voice. This is considered as men interrupting or talking over women, and they would some how ignore women’s opinion as they believe that women have not enough knowledge for the issues. Women may feel like their views are not heard or supported until re-stated by a man. A woman said, “if I really want to get an idea up, I brief my male colleague to propose it in the meeting. I don’t like it but it’s a means to an end.” The truth is Women lose many voices in the work place.
There are still many other phenomenon about systemic injustice towards women in the society everyday. It might appears in families, in work place, at school or anywhere. Related to what we learned in class, men are considered as “One” and women are considered as “Other”. “One” may stand still in the society while “Other” has to deal with all these discrimination.
Resources:
https://www.unicef.org/media/media_58924.html
I thought this was a great presentation, and it related quite closely to mine, but I wanted to make note of something toward the end. I personally viewed this as the “One” and the “Other” as well. However, I would not say that men get to stand still while women face discrimination. While I do agree that women face more discrimination, I do not think that men are standing still. In my showcase, I talked about how I was treated in my workplace and how men always progressed while women stood still. Looking at it with discrimination, I agree with your statement, but looking at it in progression of status, men are definitely moving as women stand still. Would you agree or disagree? Furthermore, I liked your use of pictures rather than graphs because it helped me relate to how the woman was feeling in the situation. Great job!
I thought this showcase diary was really well written and an informative and interesting read. I agree that woman are constantly facing discrimination in the work place and that is hard to go unnoticed. It made me angry to read the quote that a women said she needs to go through her male colleagues in the work place to get her own idea across, that should not be how it is. I also really liked how you touched on men being the “One” and women bring the “Other” because in some situations that is truly how some make it feel who look down upon the female gender.
This showcase was very informative about gender discrimination. I really liked that you incorporated multiple examples of gender discrimination because it is an issue that effects a lot of different scenarios and aspects in life. I also agree with your choice to include the comparison of gender discrimination with the “One” and “Other” that we had learned. I think it is a great example because those concepts can help explain more in depth about how deep gender discrimination can be rooted.