The issue of gender inequality is one that has been publicly reverberating through society for decades.  Gender inequality is one of the most persistent forms of inequality, and is defined as males’ and females’ unequal access to resources, power, prestige, status, and property on the basis of their sex.  The expectations that are attached to these labels guide our behaviour in everyday life.  Gender inequality touches all aspects of social life; we are labelled as male or female no matter what our social class, age, racial, or ethnic classification is.  Gender is the primary division between people around the world, and every society puts up a barrier; moreover, it is a much wider gap then most people believe.  It also sorts us, on the basis of our sex, into different life experiences, and is a structural feature of society.

 Gender Bias Imposing On Girls’ Education

In most places around the world, especially in developing societies, gender bias imposes on girls’ education.  An educated woman has the skills and self confidence that    she needs to become a better worker and parent.  Statistics show that females are discriminated against when it comes to education; approximately one billion adults around the world cannot read and two-thirds of them are women.  Over 130 million children are not enrolled in grade school, and 70 percent of those children are girls.  Worldwide, 85 percent   of men, compared with 76 percent of women, are literate.  Overall, while the gender gap in  school enrolments closed somewhat during the 1990’s, the gap widened in less developed countries,  where girls are more likely to quit school, often for family-related reasons.  Canada’s successful progression can be attributed to many people.  Sociologists, feminists, and other theorists have come up with their own perspectives about gender inequalities in education, and the situation continued to gradually improve; however, discrimination still persisted.  For example, in the 1960’s, girls were expected to take home economic classes and boys were expected take shop class.  Gender socialization gives men and women different orientations to life, which causes them to enter higher education with gender-linked ambitions; men earn over 75 percent of bachelor’s degrees in engineering and 67 percent in mathematics and physical sciences, fields which are considered masculine.  Women are awarded 73 percent of bachelor’s degrees in health professions and occupations, over 71 percent in education and 68 percent in fine and applied arts, which are considered feminine fields.

 Gender Bias On Employment Opportunities 

Women have less employment opportunities than men around the world; this can be shown in 1950, when women composed 30 percent of the workforce and, over 50 years later, this number increased to 47 percent.  Women have always worked however, over the past 35 years we have seen a massive movement of women into the paid labour force.  Working women are an increasingly significant component of our society, becoming more essential to our economy’s health.  About 75 percent of the jobs in the well paying professions are held by men. Even if women were able to obtain equal jobs, they would still be paid considerably less for the same job .  Another example of how women are manipulated into jobs of a certain quality is when companies do not give maternal leave or subsidize child care for working mothers. They also run the risk of being deprived of privileges such as bonuses and promotions due to taking a leave from the workforce to bear a child.  This makes it    hard for a woman to get back up on the job ladder.  There was a demand for workers during, and immediately after, the world wars; women’s participation rate increased from 17 percent in 1921 to 20 percent in 1931, and from 24.4 percent in 1939 to 25.5 percent in1944.  There was a decline following World War II when millions of women left factories to return home, but then women’s Labour-force participation progressively climbed again from the mid-1950’s on.  There are a few terms which best define women in society today, such as the “glass ceiling”, which refers to an invisible barrier to social advancement that many women face in some organizations.  Another term is “mommy track”, which refers to the constraint limiting women’s labour-force participation of career advancement due to the pressure they face from their family-related roles, expectations, and responsibilities.  Wives are more likely to be the caretakers of the marriage and children than husbands, which makes their work lives more difficult.  Sex typing is where every society associates activities with one sex or another; nonetheless, and activities that are considered female in one society could be considered male in another.                   

Gender Bias Imposing On Activities

Universally, greater prestige is given to male activities, regardless of what those activities are.  For example, if farming is men’s work, then farming is considered important, and carries high prestige; however, if it is women’s work, it is considered less important, and given less prestige.  Wage is also an important factor here, because if a man’s occupation is now considered a women’s occupation, the prestige and wage of that occupation will decline.   Women average less pay than men in all around the world; in Canada, women earn less than 73 cents for every dollar earned by Canadian males.  The gender gap in pay earnings shows up at all levels of education, and exists in all industrialized nations.  Precisely, a male will make on average about $800 000 more than a female.  Researchers found that even if women had earned higher grades and done more internship then men, they would still earn a lower salary at the same job.  In1991 economists Rex Fuller and Richard  Schoenberger examined the  starting salaries of business majors and found that women averaged 11 percent ($1737) lower  pay; however, five years later, to their surprise, found that the  gap grew and women earned  14 percent ($3615) less than the men.  Within the next   five years, it was found that the gender pay gap narrowed due to increases in female graduates’ earnings and decreases in male graduates’ salaries; the number of women in male occupations doubled.