REVISITING GENDER EQUALITY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

By
Sa’idu Sulaiman
(Chief Lecturer in Economics)
Economics Department, Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, Kano, Nigeria
E‐Mail: saisulaiman@yahoo.com

Date: December 30, 2010

Abstract

This paper revisits some major issues related to gender equality and human development with a view to
redirecting people’s thoughts and action towards achieving a more meaningful and sustainable human
development. The paper submits that a relative gender equality based on situations that determine who
efficiently does what, the natural division of labour and the Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage,
is what promotes human development. Upon this submission, the paper then recommends measures for
boosting human development, such as assigning appropriate gender roles to male and female members
of families, organizations and societies, on the basis of their biological and genetic characteristics and the
approved cultural norms and societal values.

Introduction

The common argument of the proponents of gender equality is that gender roles are
merely social constructs, that is, it is the society or culture in which people live that
assigns specific roles to its males and females, so these roles could be played by
everybody irrespective of gender.

Philosophers, economists and political leaders have for long emphasized human well-
being as the purpose and the end of development. Construction of roads, bridges and
public buildings, provision of public utilities, increasing the economic growth, curtailing
unemployment, etc, are only the means to an end. The end is the overall development
and wellbeing of the humankind.

This paper revisits some major issues related to gender equality and human
development with a view to redirecting people’s thoughts and action towards achieving
a more meaningful and sustainable human development. The paper then recommends
measures for boosting human development.

Gender Related Concepts and Issues

The term gender refers to the wide set of characteristics that are seen to distinguish
between female and male members of a species. It can extend from biological sex in
humans and some other animals to a social role or gender identity
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender). Gender has also been defined as

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 the socially-constructed roles of women and men which are attributed to
them on the basis of their sex. Gender roles therefore depend on a
particular socio-economic, political and cultural context and are affected by
other factors including race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation and age.
Gender roles are learned and vary widely within and between cultures.
Unlike a person's biological sex, gender roles can change.
(http://eycb.coe.int/compass/en/chapter_5/5_7.html)
Gender identity refers to one's chosen social identity from amongst the acknowledged
gender identities present in a society that represent one's sex and gender aspirations.
There are three main forms of gender: masculine, feminine and neutral
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity). Gender role is a set of social and
behavioural norms that, within a specific culture, are widely considered to be socially
appropriate for individuals of a specific gender
((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role).

Gender equality is defined as

an equal level of empowerment, participation and visibility of both sexes in

all spheres of public and private life. Gender equality is not to be thought
of as the opposite of gender difference but rather of gender inequality. It
aims to promote the full participation of women and men in society.
(http://eycb.coe.int/compass/en/chapter_5/5_7.html).

Though this definition claims that gender equality is not the opposite of gender
difference but of gender inequality, it fails to explain what gender inequality is and how it
differs from gender difference.

Biological differences between males and females cannot be overcome and being the
basis for the sustainability of the human species, they are highly desirable. We should
not, therefore, take gender differences to be biological differences or dissipate our
energies on eliminating them. Gender difference and gender inequality could all mean
differences in roles given to or instinctively and intuitively undertaken by males and
females on the basis of their biological differences. Gender difference or gender
inequality in this sense, are the opposite of gender equality, and are products of
instincts and social constructs, or products of nature and nurture, to use language of
psychologists.

It needs to be stated here that discrimination meted out to people on the basis of their
sex per se, which often emerges out of male or female chauvinism and prejudice, is not
the same as gender difference, which reflects differences in gender roles assigned to
people according to their biological characteristics and the environment (culture).

Helena Cronin, a philosopher of science and Co-director of the Centre for Philosophy of
the Natural and Social Sciences at the London School of Economics, despite being a

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woman, she, in the following words, correctly and boldly debunks the notion that gender
differences are merely social constructs:

Men and women look unalike, walk unalike, talk unalike. They differ in who
is more competitive, single-minded and risk-taking; who is more likely to
climb Everest, drive too fast, become President of the United States, commit
a murder, or win a Nobel prize; in what triggers their sexual jealousy, erotic
fantasies, status envy. Differences such as these are universal,
transcending culture, class, ethnicity, religion, education, and politics. They
manifest themselves in all societies, across the modern world, and in every
known record back through time. Above all, they are differences that any
student of evolutionary theory could predict and explain. And yet, it has
been said that so-called “gender” differences are just a social construct, a
mere cultural artifact, as arbitrary, unwarranted and pointless as pink for
girls and blue for boys (and, of course, vastly more invidious)—and
therefore, when it comes to explaining male-female differences, an
evolutionary understanding is irrelevant or marginal (Cronin, 2006).

Unlike some scientists, Cronin does not shy away from attributing differences between
the sexes to biology even though she accepts the influence of environment on the
behaviours of men and women by saying,

It is genetic differences that account for the vast difference in murder rates
between men and women; but it is environmental differences that account for
the vast difference in murder rates between men in Iceland and men in
Miami (Cronin, 2006).

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) recognizes gender equality among adults
in terms of “equal enjoyment of rights and mutually respectful relationships in both the
public and private spheres”, and as what “provides an essential context in which girls
and boys can learn the gender-equal attitudes and behaviours that will sustain human
development and development goals such as the MDGs over time” (UNICEF Policy,
2010:5). This view emphasizes equality of rights and mutuality respectful relationships
between males and females. It also links gender equality to the attainment of
sustainable human development and development goals.

On equality of rights among males and females, it needs to be stated that one’s rights
need to be determined with respects one’s needs, peculiarities and the culturally
assigned and instinctive roles. A woman, for instance, should be given a right to
maternal health care due to the role of child bearing assigned to her biologically, while a
man should have no right in this regard. Upon this submission and the example given, it
is naïve for one to accept gender equality in all public and private spheres because
gender roles assigned according to biological characteristics and the environment
(culture) can never be the same for males and females in any society on earth. So the
quest for absolute gender equality is a fantasy and a façade.

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Natural Division of Labour

Most cultures adopt a natural division of labour which leaves child care and domestic
chores to women while men serve as bread winners. Alsop and Healey, (2008:15)
write that “across the world women take greater responsibility than men for maintaining
domestic environments, child care and non-cash economy activities.” Heintz, (2008:12)
also states that women frequently have the “primary responsibility for unpaid, non-
market housework and caring labour,” but complains that this responsibility limits their
direct control on household income, and their paid work experience. Although these
authors have taken note of the prevalence of the natural division of labour, they
remained inclined to the pursuit for absolute gender equality, which allows women to
partake in paid work and breadwinning. They seem to overlook the opportunity cost that
women and the society bear when women prefer paid jobs to the primary responsibility
of child care and non-cash economy activities.

Major world religions, such as Islam and Christianity require their followers to accept the
natural division of labour between men and women. The Holy Qur’an says:

Men are in charge of women by (right of) what Allah has given one over
the other and what they spend (for maintenance) from their wealth. So
righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in (the husband’s)
absence what Allah would have them guard. (Qur’an 4:35)

The Holy Qur’an also commands women to remain at home (Qur’an 33:3), however, if
there is a need for them to go out, they need to dress modestly.

The Holy Bible also requires women to adorn themselves and not to have authority over
men, among other injunctions given in the following verses:

Women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel,

not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as
befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all
submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men;
she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was
not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
(1Timothy 2:9-14, The Bible, Revised Standard Version).

The salvation of a woman lies in playing her natural role of a mother bearing children, in
addition to being faithful and modest, as the Holy Bible says in these regards:
Yet woman will be saved through bearing children if she continues in faith
and love and holiness, with modesty (1Timothy 2:15, The Bible, Revised
Standard Version).

The natural division of labour is, certainly, justified because child birth and care are
natural to women, and their combination with domestic work is commonplace because

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this work provides mothers with the most convenient setting for full time child care,
breastfeeding and mentorship for the young ones. Paid jobs done in factories, offices,
markets and other places of work outside the home, limit the effectiveness with which
women provide child care, breastfeeding and mentorship. This has two negative
consequences on human development. First, it lowers the provision of health care
through breastfeeding, and the provision of education and moral training through
mentorship to children, thus hampering human capital and human development.
Secondly, the paid jobs suffer due to factors such as long and frequent maternity
leaves, paying attention to child care needs as well as physical and psychological
discomfort, which women have during menstruation and pregnancy periods. Some
providers of employment opportunities to women derive benefits from the exploitation of
women by using them to attract male customers or by paying them lower wages.

The above points indicate why the natural division of labour between men and women
will continue to exist despite efforts being made to replace it with an artificial means of
sharing responsibilities between the two sexes.

Relative Gender Equality

A relative gender equality is one that is based on situations that determine who
efficiently does what among the male and female members of a family, an organization
or a community by taking their biological differences and the societal norms and values
(or simply the natural division of labour) into consideration,. The situations include the
following:

a) Situations where gender equality holds (e.g. seeking knowledge for

the worship of God, ownership of property, etc).

b) Situations where gender roles differ (e.g. conceiving pregnancy and

breastfeeding are for women only).

c) Situations where gender roles are complementary: These are

situations in which the role of a male complements that of a female (e.g.
proper upbringing of children, maintaining good relationship with one’s
neighbours, etc). Playing different but complementary role by males and
females does mean gender discrimination or the relegation of one’s role in
the scheme of things. It is just like the roles of a pen and a piece of paper in
essay writing. One should not say the pen is better than the paper or vice
versa, the paper is important in its own right just as the pen is, so talking
about equality under this situation is absurd.

d) Situations where gender roles should exploit comparative advantages:

These are situations in which males and females can all play a given role but
females have an added advantage over the males, or the males have an
added advantage over the females (e.g. it is more advantageous for women
to manage their homes and look after their children than for men to play this

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 role. It is also more advantageous for men look after the family cattle at the
grazing field or work in minefields, than to assign these tasks to women).

David Ricardo (1772-1823) formulated the theory of comparative advantage. Using

Portugal and England as examples and two commodities (wine and cloth), Ricardo
argued that there would be gains from trade if each nation specializes in the production
of the commodity in which it has a comparative cost advantage and then buys the other
commodity from the other nation, (Bannock, Baxter and Davis 1998,
http://cepa.newshool.edu/het/profiles/ricardo.htm). There is no comparative advantage
for a family or society that asks men to look after children and women to work on
minefields. Advantages, such as health benefits to be obtained from full time breast
feeding of babies, shaping the character and educating the young ones, which can
easily be combined with domestic work, outstrip the advantages of asking women to
work outside the home. There are, certainly, many widely recognized health benefits for
breastfed infants, these include:

Decreased onset of common infant illnesses such as upper and lower

respiratory infections, gastrointestinal infections, and ear infections (otitis
media). Breastfeeding protects against celiac disease (gluten-sensitive
enteropathy) and has even been used as an analgesic for newborns during
routine hospital blood tests (US DHHS, 2000). Breastfeeding also
promotes bonding between mother and baby. Newer research on long-term
effects has found associations between breastfeeding and reduced
incidence of overweight later in life (Michigan State University Extension
and Family and Consumer Sciences, 2003)

The popular saying, ‘when you educate a man you are educating an individual, and
when you educate a woman you are educating a nation’, is based on the premise that
children stay most with their mothers than with their fathers. If the mother stays away
from home for several hours, her role as a teacher then becomes frail. Benefits from
services provided by mothers as regards proper child rearing and character moulding
surpass any monetary reward obtainable by mothers who hand over their children to
nannies and leave their homes to work in factories, markets and offices. Their
engagement in paid jobs outside the home can rob their children of proper care and
moral uprightness, and breed counterculture in the society.

In many cultures and religions, the responsibility of providing the means of livelihood to
women in their capacities as daughters, wives, sisters and old mothers lies with men
who serve in the capacities of their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, respectively.
So, in this respect, it could also be said, when you empower a woman (economically or
politically) you empower an individual and when you empower a man you empower a
nation. The best way to empower women may be to educate and protect them from the
acts of selfish men and women, and from all forms of societal evils and machinations.

Mutually Respectful Relationships

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Mutually respectful relationships between males and females, which are also aspects of
gender equality as contained in the UNICEF document referred to above, are quite
acceptable. Almost all men have mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives and daughters,
all of them females, so why should they not be respectful to them? In the same vein,
almost all women have fathers, grandfathers, brothers, husbands and sons, all of them
males, therefore, why should they not be respectful to them? Gender discrimination
made on the basis of sex per se, which often emerges out of male and female
chauvinism and prejudice, is what causes division and hatred among the male and
female members of an organization or a society. Such discrimination should not be
tolerated, let alone promoted.

Human Development

The UNICEF document quoted above, also says that gender equality provides a vital
context in which girls and boys learn the gender-equal attitudes and behaviours that will
sustain human development and development goals over time. This statement links
gender equality to the attainment of sustainable human development and development
goals, especially the Millennium Development Goals.

Human development is much more than the rise or fall of national incomes, and much
more than economic growth, which is only a means. Human development is about
creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead
productive and creative lives in line with their needs and interests.
(http://hdr.undp.org/en/humandev/). Human development entails investing in people by
enhancing their capabilities to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have
access to the resources and social services, needed for a decent standard of living and
to be able to participate in the life of the community. It also enlarges peoples’ choices
through building human capabilities —the range of things that people can do or be in
life, it disperses the concentration of the distribution of goods and services and centre
its ideas on human decisions.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_development_(humanity))

There are four basic pillars of human development: equity, sustainability, production and
empowerment. Equity is the idea of fairness for every person; we each have the right to
education and health care. Sustainability is the view that we all have the right to earn a
living that can sustain us and have access to a more even distribution of goods and
services. Production is used to show how the government needs more efficient social
programs for its people. Lastly, empowerment is providing people who are powerless
with some power. There are four ways to link economic growth with human
development : (a) emphasis on investment in the education, health, and skills of people
(b) more equitable distribution of income and assets, (c) well-structured social
expenditures by the government , and (d) empowerment of people (ibid).

The Human Development Index (HDI)

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A Human Development Index (HDI) was developed in 1990 by a Pakistani economist,
Mahbub ul Haq, and an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, to provide a simple composite
measure of human development needed to convince the public, academics, and policy-
makers that they can and should evaluate development not only by economic advances
but also improvements in human well-being. The HDI has been used since 1990 by the
United Nations Development Programme for its annual Human Development Reports
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index).

The HDI is a measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living and GDP
per capita for countries worldwide. It is an improved standard means of measuring well-
being. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an
under-developed country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on
quality of life. Knowledge and education are measured by the adult literacy rate (with
two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross
enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting). Standard of living is measured by the gross
domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. The gross domestic product
(GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is a basic measure of a country's overall
economic output. It is the market value of all final goods and services made within the
borders of a country in a year. The term per capita means per person. Life expectancy
is the expected (in the statistical sense) number of years of life remaining at a given
age.

Rethinking Human Development

One of the critics of the HDI, Ratan Lal Basu , an Indian Economist, says the HDI
considers provision of material amenities alone as what would bring about human
development, and argues that human development effort should not end up in
amelioration of material deprivations alone, it must bring about spiritual and moral
development to make people truly human. Life expectancy, for instance, can be low in a
morally decadent society where suicides and homicides become the order of the day
(Ibid).

It needs to be added that advancement in science and technology, and acquisition

material wealth, unfortunately, can easily make an individual or a community arrogant,
and despotic or erroneously think that might is right, but they cannot produce moral
values in people nor can they promote brotherhood, sympathy, love and piety among
them.

It is when the moral aspect of the humankind is developed that the philosophy of might
is right will be replaced by that of loving your brother as you love yourself or being your
brother’s keeper. When this replacement is made the world will find lasting peace and
human development will reach its peak in several nations of the world.

Against this backdrop, is could be more appropriate to redefine human development

as investing in people by enhancing their capacities to harness resources, solve

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problems, participate in matters and meet challenges confronting them, all with a view
to improving their material wellbeing, health conditions and moral uprightness.

On the four basic pillars of human development: equity, sustainability, production and
empowerment, it needs to be stated that equity should reflect the natural division of
labour and the relative gender equality explained above. This will promote sustainability
and productivity, because, as already explained, the pursuit for absolute gender equality
defies the natural division of labour, the principle of comparative advantage, and the
cultural norms of most societies, and this hampers development and productivity.
Empowerment too should be directed to the right channels, provision of economic and
political power for men, and provision of education, support, protection for women and
children. This, however, does not mean that women should be excluded from economic
empowerment. In fact, widows who assume the role of breadwinners for their families
need this empowerment as much as men do.

Measures for Boosting Human Development

Measures for boosting human development include the following:

a) Increasing output by providing basic infrastructure such as water, electricity and

roads, security and enabling environment with a view to raising the GDP
b) Increasing the living standard of people by enhancing their purchasing power to
be commensurate with the available resources.
c) Raising the levels of literacy and the standards of education by providing more
schools and educational facilities and a sufficient and qualified teaching force with
a view to having a realistic teacher-student ratio and subsequently improving the
quality of education and producing employable graduates.
d) Increased provision of health care facilities and personnel so that access to
doctors, nurses and medicines is made much more easier to people at a little or
no cost especially for the poor, the old and the physically challenged.
e) Creating societal reorientation programmes aimed at boosting and sustaining
moral development among people.
f) Assigning appropriate gender roles to male and female members of families,
organizations and societies on the basis of their biological and genetic
characteristics and the approved cultural norms and societal values.
g) Enjoining men and women to refrain from exploitation of one another and to
respect one another.
h) Enjoining men, as breadwinners, to always consider the needs and interests of all
members of their families in the utilization of family income and resources.
i) Valuing the contributions which women make to societal development
through child care and domestic services in their own right, instead of making
references to material gains derivable from paid jobs.
j) The resources and energies expended on popularizing the artificial division of
division or gender parity in all spheres of private and public life could better be
used in studying causes and cases of discrimination and exploitation meted out to

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 people on the basis of their gender under the dispensations of both the natural
and artificial divisions of labour, and finding ways of curtailing them.

Conclusion

Pursuit for relative gender equality, as opposed to the absolute gender equality, is what,
certainly, engenders human development because child care services and mentoring
provided by mothers to their children form the foundation of human development, while
their domestic services contribute to the GDP directly by supplementing goods and
services created in an economy, and indirectly by allowing men to concentrate on their
own share of the natural division of labour.

References
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poverty reduction”, Poverty in Focus, International Poverty Centre, Number 13,
January 2008. Accessed on August 13, 2010 from http://www.undp-
povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus13.pdf

Bannock, Graham; Baxter, R.E and Davis, Evan (1998). The Penguin Dictionary of
Economics (6th edition). (London: Penguin Books Ltd.).

Cronin, Helena (2006) “Darwinian Insights into Sex and Gender” Microsoft ® Encarta ®
2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.

Heintz, James (2008) “Poverty, Employment and Globalisation: A gender

perspective”, Poverty in Focus, International Poverty Centre Number 13, January
2008. Accessed on August 13, 2010 from http://www.undp-
povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus13.pdf

http://cepa.newshool.edu/het/profiles/ricardo.htm visited on 25th May 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender) accessed on June 4, 2010

Human Development Index accessed on August 29, 2010 from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index).

Human Development accessed on August 29, 2010 from

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_development_(humanity)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity accessed on June 5, 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role accessed on June 24, 2010

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Michigan State University Extension and Family and Consumer Sciences (2003)
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http://hdr.undp.org/en/humandev/

The Qur’an: Arabic Text with Corresponding English Meanings (1997) Abulqasim
Publishing House.

UNICEF (2010) UNICEF Policy on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Girls and
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