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Everybody in this world is born equal. They are born naked and are given equal
chances to live or die. In their everyday existence, they always look upon themselves as
beneficiaries of fair and just treatment given by their environment in order to meet the
demands of daily living. This argument seemed to be ideal and perfect in a world where people
try to put themselves always at an advantageous position and always see to it that they are
always on top which may give them convenient life. If a person who has been motivated to
fulfill his personal desires and interest and has the power to make it happen, it will create a
ripple effect leaving the rest of humanity in partiality and bias. It is the aspiration of this paper
to present a strong argument on the notion of this manifestation in gender, class and race.
Gender Inequalities
There has always been a big disparity in the gap between male and female in the
world right now. Although there are attempts to bridge this gap, the void to fill is still enormous
in such a way that women are still given unequal treatment because of the machismo mentality
that has been maligning our consciousness for a very long time. All of these are attributed to a
cause which cannot be easily altered and which was claimed by Khan (2015) that “the root
cause seems to be the culture because it is through culture that we come to know who men
and women are and what kind of relationship do the two have with each other”. Put it simply,
the established relationship has been strongly influenced to look how women are treated as
the weaker sex and should not be given equal opportunities as men do. To further substantiate
this point, 70% of the one billion people living in the poverty line right now are women which
may result to other problems concerning education and health. Although in the Philippines, this
may not be entirely the case but still, this manifestation can be detrimental to society [if not
addressed] because girls who are deprived of these commodities are expected to suffer and will
be at the losing end of the battle. The following are evidences to this claim:
a. Women in Education
Women are deprived of quality education around the world. Although the case
might be different in our country but generally it was asserted in Mccune (2014) that
“women make up more than two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults, and access to
education is especially a problem.” Because of the lack of information on how to live
their lives, it was further stressed that “female rights are also compromised due to
limited awareness of what they should be entitled to, which could only be remedied
through greater access to education (Mccune, 2014).” Clearly a violation of basic right
for women has been committed and the situation is even worse in the rural places from
which unwomen.org (2018) noted that “more than 35% of all poor rural women lack
basic literacy skills.” This is primarily because their access to education is limited and
thus might have incur consequences which was also presented by unwomen.org (2018)
that “women might have problems with their employability or their ability to work; their
ways of making decisions; which may lead them to low paying jobs, decreased social
well-being and increased health consequences [which will be discussed later]”. It is
indeed unfortunate for women to be deprived of learning and be able to uplift
themselves and be part of a literate public and be able to share their views about the
world.
b. Women in Health
Women are also deprived of health services from the moment they were brought
by their parents in this world. Culture may also dictate that men are preferred to be
children as they will continue the family’s surname and having female in the family
simply means a commodity whose value is realized if they can get a rich husband. None
of these seemed to matter if women are not healthy and it was even reported by the
Philippine Commission on Women (2014) that “in 2011 [as reported in the FHS Family
survey], out of 100,000 mothers who are expected to give birth, 221 mothers died
during pregnancy and childbirth or even shortly after childbirth”. This was further
supported by unwomen.org (2018) who reiterated that “in low income countries, less
likely 38% of rural women are to give birth with a health care worker than those of
urban women which might lead to increased chances of life-threatening situations,
severe-bleeding, infection and maternal mortality”. This situation may likewise be
disadvantageous for women and their soon to be children since they cannot enjoy such
services.
It may infer that the situation may not be applicable to the Philippines; however
in MacPhail (MacPhail 2015), it was even noted how the good result of being a Global Gender
Gap Report Topnotcher in 2014 [as we ranked 9th out of 142 countries], was over shadowed by
how “gender inequality persists in economic opportunities and political empowerment, where
the Philippines ranked 24th and 17th respectively. The Philippines’ ranking for labor force
participation was even lower, at 102 out of 142 countries. This is due to a female labor force
participation rate of just 53 per cent, which is extremely low compared to a male participation
rate of 81 per cent.” This in turn may reflect how the rest of the world continues to discriminate
women and be able to put one’s interest forward without thinking of the possible
consequences that may be incurred if these problems are not solved immediately.
Class Inequalities
If gender inequality is rampant, class inequality is even worse. The world at this point
looks at India where its caste system has been at the forefront of this issue and has been putting its
citizen to selection depending on their social status in the society. In the Philippines, although one can
say that the government has been exhausting all means to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor
still a big percentage of our population still remained poor and cannot uplift themselves. This is the
reason why the gap still continues to worsen. It is like a pyramid where the majority are the poor who
remains at the bottom while the selected few who are rich remain at the top and feel comfortable in
every situation and will do their best to stay there. Let the following evidences prove this argument and
support what has been putting our country [and probably, the rest of the world] in suffering and chaos.
In order to bridge the gap and address the social inequalities, a paradigm shift is expected.
This means Filipinos need to refocus their priorities and make sure to train themselves [including their
children] to make the right decisions and alter their mindset from a consumer to an entrepreneur in
order to climb the status and make the gap a little shorter.
Race Inequalities
This topic has been a melting pot of different opinions whether one calls it discrimination
or bias. In all parts of the world, people have been expressive when they felt like they were misjudged
by others based on the color of their skin, their ethnic group or even their race. It is very important to
seek ways on how put an end on this and by presenting evidences on its manifestations here in our
country or even overseas, this last section hopes to make the reader understand the importance of
keeping oneself as authentic as possible without compromising impartiality towards others.
The world is indeed full of inequalities. The list goes on and on and it is up to us how we
will react and live our lives to the fullest. One famous quote to support this was mentioned by the John
F. Kennedy who said “there is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are
wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.” At the end of the day, it still depends
on how you live your life. If a person is discriminated because of his or her gender, let justice finds its
way by fighting for what is right. If a person is judged because of his class or social status, let
perseverance finds it way to prove the misconceptions. And if a person is treated with partiality
because of his race, let the truth speak from within that no matter happens, a person is uniquely
beautiful as he is God’s wonderful gift to this world. And that he shouldn’t bother whether he or she will
be liked or not for as long as he appreciates who is, there is somebody up there watching over.
References:
50 riches man in the philippines. (2017). Forbes. Retrieved July 20, 2018, from
https://www.forbes.com/philippines-billionaires/#48fa7f1d7776
Mccune, E. M. (2014, June 6). 10 examples of gender discrimination. Seattle, USA. Retrieved July 17,
2018, from http://www.borgenmagazine.com/10-examples-gender-inequality-world/
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_f_kennedy_400130?src=t_inequality