Barriers to Social Justice: Race & Gender

RACE & GENDER 1
BARRIERS TO SOCIAL JUSTICE
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9th April, 2019

RACE & GENDER 2
Introduction
Thomas Moore published a fictional political satire which imagines an island that
proposes the idea of what an ideal and just society should look like, called Utopia. For a society
to be termed as just, it should, in essence, be a system which is designed to meet the needs of
people and to provide for equality as well as equity thereby bringing about both psychological
and physical security to the members of said society. In practice, there are numerous barriers to
social justice and fairness with all having to do with some form of discrimination or oppression.
Race, Gender, Religion, Sexuality, Class, Age are some of the most notable barriers to the
achievement of a Utopian society. (Loewen and Pollard, 2010). In this paper, I shall focus my
interest and arguments on Race and Gender as barriers that prevent fair and just societies from
existing. Both race and gender, as impediments towards social justice, are fuelled by
humankind’s inherent quest for superiority. Every group wants to be dominant so as to control
societal norms and economic and political policies and power. In terms of race, the problem of
racial discrimination and populism is just as big in the present as it was and has been in centuries
past (Luca-Silveira, 2016). It is a very dynamic sort of phenomenon, and just changes form from
generation to the next. Gender based discrimination as a barrier towards the actualization of
societal justice is a great challenge due to the enormous influences that drive it such as religion,
age and Mother Nature itself.
Gender Inequality
Historically, there are numerous forms of inequality between men and women across all
societies on earth. In many cultures, it is usually a case of the patriarchy being the dominant
party leading to great oppression and violence being meted upon women (Bose, 2012). It is a
world where conditioning of society on the superiority of the patriarchy is done right from a
formative age. The inequalities in treatment, access to services and opportunities and exercise of
basic human rights between men and women, increases the risks of women being abused
(Steinberg and Skae, 2018, p.2602). Socially acceptable norms are instilled from childhood
where the boys and girls are taught differently. Boys are raised to be aggressive, dominant and to
take control. Girls, on the other hand, are taught how to be submissive and to cede control and
power to their male counterparts.

RACE & GENDER 3
There are a number of factors that contribute to this state of affairs among them:
• Religion
• Customs
• Nature
The patriarchy operates in all religions and cultures with only the ideologies bringing about
differences. Gender inequality has led to girls being disadvantaged from birth before they even
get a start in life. Statistics show that two thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are female with
only half of the women population being employed as contrasted with a figure of three quarters
of men being employed. Gender bias and inequality in the work force has led to an enormous and
staggering disparity in the wages earned by both groups, with the wage gap standing at $17
Trillion which is a big blow to the purchasing power of women. (Holma, 2018).
Economic disparities such as this are the result of the reluctance of many parents to send
their female children to school. This is done because of a myriad of reasons, among them the
belief that boys are more intelligent than girls; girls are seen as sex objects only good for
marriage and giving birth. (Brandt, 2011, p.1415). In some African communities and indeed
other areas of the globe, girls are not educated as it is seen as a waste of resources on a person
who will eventually join another household in order to bear and nurture children for another
family. It is also for this same reason that in some societies women are not allowed to inherit
property from their fathers, only the male children are entitled to inheritance.
In the year 2012, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Pakistan
Taliban for her efforts in championing the rights of the girl child to an education. This despicable
act just goes to show the lengths patriarchal fanatics will go to in order to maintain the status quo
of oppressive practices towards women. The denial of education to women has far reaching
effects not only in terms of income, but also inequalities in terms of access to healthcare. Due to
the lack of access to vital information, women are made vulnerable to cultural practices that are
retrogressive as well as unfair religious teachings and practices.
Practices such as female circumcision were developed to oppress women and their
sexuality while the men maintain their natural sexual desires and pleasure. The extent of this vile