Argumentative Essay on Has Gender Equality Improved in the 21st Century?

Argumentative Essay
Argumentative Essay on "Has Gender Equality Improved in the 21st Century?”
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Argumentative Essay
Gender Equality has been one of the most debated topics of this century. Society has been
fighting with this one issue for long. the term for a long time has only considered the gender
binary of biological options: male and female as defined by Gaag (2019). Both these genders
have constantly fought over access to basic resources and living with equality and dignity.
This essay will aim to understand how 21st century has successfully implemented gender
equality in a lot spheres and how this improvement will continue in future as well.
For a major chunk of time, gender equality was only about women oppression and how the
middle ground has to be found along with promoting their welfare (Evans & Engeli, 2019).
Gender equality is a two-way concept and has bothered both the genders equally. Initially, the
term was used to voice support for women. Since long, history has been unfair to women for
a lot of things; from education to voting rights, still the situation has improved a lot.
However, with this improvement, there are various segments or fractions of society that have
constantly asked for more. For example, women have constantly asked representation in
STEM field in Australia. Even then the representation is about 20% only, which improved
from 10% in 2010 as per the Government of Australia (2018).
Molloy (2018) states that there are several factors which have contributed to this gender
divide: Social and political constructs being the most prominent and impactful ones. The
issues in the 21st century, however, are different. While women have found their hold, issue
such as lack of promotion, pay parity, casual sexism etc. have also crept in. Australia’s full
time gender pay gap currently is 14% as measured by the WGEA (2018). However, this
number has come down from 18% in 2014. Hence, it is quite right to say that some progress
towards gender inclusion have been made.
According to Awaworyi Churchill, Nuhu & Lopez (2018), the ethnic divide has been one of
the major contributors to gender division, especially in Australia. According to the authors,
"Gender divide is deeply influenced by happening in the social environment of the particular
society” and the process of change is long term. This is quite the situation everywhere and
cannot be just restricted to few societies or culture only.
However, the situation has changed a lot over time. Women have managed to fight for their
rights and have been successful in doing so as well, and in this pursuit, a lot of men have also
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Argumentative Essay
helped them. For example, Sir Ian McKellen has been a women right champion. This is the
beginning of bringing men and women together and moving slowly towards bridging the
gender gap as strongly argued by Braunstein (2017). Men in Australia have become more
careful about how they conduct themselves in public with women, how they voice their
opinions do not come out as sexist and focus more on creating safer workplaces and
communities. This is where gender equality starts. Australian school have started sensitizing
young boys and girls towards these issues at a very young age.
The Australian society as of today is extremely influential and can be swayed away by any
catalyst that holds a certain position and can be influenced easily. Here, it is quite
commendable that many famous men have come out to support women. A recent example
has been the abortion ban in America. While this regressive law has been extremely
distressing to women of that country, a lot of men came in support of the women and their
involvement in this matter. There are various instances which have occurred over time and
will continue to happen. Women get a lot of support from all the spheres, and most
importantly, the opportunities are now equal. While the mindset of people has changed a lot,
the powerholders to have increasingly come in support of women wherever it was needed.
One such policy is the SDG laid out by UN which emphasize a lot on gender equality and
focuses on the importance of female education. Even though these global agendas are far
from reality, and have not been 100% effective, these agendas and policies have still created
a little difference which is just enough for start (North & Unterhalter, 2011).
Women all around the world have appreciated this move since they have access to education
in an unbiased manner. This has helped a lot of women to work hard on themselves and
further contribute to the cause of gender equality as well.
While a lot of focus has been given to only the side of gender equality which focuses on the
growth of women, the argument will be incomplete if the other side is not discussed. Men too
have been victims of gender inequality, especially in the court of law where women have
often taken advantage of this gender divide and the apparent notion of women being the
weaker sex (MENIF, 2019). There have been so many instances of false rape and other
criminal charges levied against men which resulted in a wrongful conviction. However, the
judicial system has started recognizing this flaw, and how women tend to take advantage of
it. Furthermore, various universities and colleges, in a bid to promote women in STEM roll
out several scholarships and reservations. While the intention behind this is purely to help
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