The Sociology Series: Part 1- Gender Inequality

The Payoff from Women's Rights

Based on the article by Isobel Coleman

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 3 (May - Jun., 2004), pp. 80-95

Published by: Council on Foreign Relations

Isobel Coleman, a Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations attributes many aspects of society wealth to women and their role in society. Reducing gender disparity is correlated to fighting poverty, economic progress and a generally better quality of life. While these are grand results from simply reducing gender disparity, Coleman  focuses mostly on the democratizing effect of educating women . In the article, increasing girls' and women's education lowers birth rates & infant mortality rates provides for better birth outcomes (higher birth weights)  and leads to better child nutrition. These are just some of the health benefits, while economic ones include more family-focused investments of household income , higher per capita income and even better outcomes from microfinance loans. Female education increases their civil liberties and Coleman assumes, would lead to other democratic reforms such as giving women a political voice as well as more control over economic resources. The current status of society in nations that have implemented policies to reduce gender disparity versus those that have not, is compared to show the differences. Turkey and Tunisia fall into the former category, boasting higher literacy rates for women, and women in positions of national political power. Nigeria, Indonesia, and some nations in the Middle East are not close to achieving either of the two progresses and encounter high tension whenever  the advancement of women is brought into question. Coleman states that "women are critical to development, good governance, and stable civil life" (82).

 

A key strength of this article, is that Coleman provides a full-circle illustration of the possible  positive outcomes of reducing gender disparity. The most obvious issues that come to mind on the subject of women's civil liberties is their political voice. While it is important that they voice their political opinions, it makes more sense to first educate women, so that they can voice well-thought, academically diverse opinions which may have a greater impact on improving their lives and those of their families. I believe that education is the foundation for a better quality of life, because the material factors that improve our lives all begin as ideas. Education serves many purposes, the two most important being; first stimulating the mind so that it is perpetually in a state of creation, and then exposing it to spheres of  information and experience which combine to build a knowledge base. Politicians of non-democratic governments who are in the position to create policies which increase women's education may be more concerned with the ignorant idea of repressing women so as maintain their stereotypical position as housewives and inferiors to men. Simultaneously, they may be facing the issue of rocketing birth rates without the economic resources to attend to a rising population. The correlation between supporting better primary education for women, and reducing birth rates in poverty-stricken parts of society, is not instantaneously obvious for many political leaders. The correlation however, at a large scale in India and other developing countries. A thought that comes to mind, is that education that affects the life cycle (birth rates, infant mortality rates etc) does not necessarily mean education focused on these subjects. For example, a women can be educated on the benefits of having fewer children, and make the same educated decision as a woman who simply attended secondary school. What I mean is, even the opportunity to be more educated in any area can be inspiring to a young woman,  who might otherwise find herself restricted to the role of caretaking. The first woman, who learned about the danger of having more children than she can care for may decide not to have more than two children, because her economic and emotional resources cannot allow it. The second woman, who may not have had the same lesson, but who graduated from primary school, may choose to have only two children, because she would like to continue on to secondary school as soon as the children begin attending school. In both cases, education has reduced the birth of children into homes where they may not have received adequate care. It is important to recognize this, because there are developing countries where there is a presence of reproductive education  that is not complemented by an even higher level of general education.

The conflict paradigm of sociology can be used to analyze the issue of gender disparity, because it associates social inequities with systemic flaws, rather than accepting them as part of society. The conflict theory focuses on the inequality of power in a society, which allows some to rise into dominant positions, and others to be dominated. When applied to gender disparity, it is revealed that the gender gap disallows women from even having the opportunity to escape the realm of those who are dominated. Lack of education, lack of control over economic resources, and repression of the female political opinion leaves women unequipped to compete with men for dominating positions. While dominance can be viewed in both positive and negative lights, there is no doubt that having women in dominant political and economic positions has more documented positive benefits over stereotypical chauvinist-engineered disadvantages.

This article has reminded me about the wealth of possibilities that women in developing can surpass and taught me about the rarely mentioned fortes of women in aspects such as money management. According to the article, Lawrence Summers, a former chief economist at the World Bank once stated that educating girls may be the investment that yields the highest returns in the developing world. Considering that women comprise a larger population than men in the world and in most societies, I agree with Summers, that focusing on this part of the population could manifest in tremendous ways globally.

International Relations Theory; Realism v. Idealism

My review of pages 1-15 :

The book begins by prefacing that there are no universal definitions for the idealist and realist theories. Nevertheless, the reader of the article must be introduced to generally accepted characteristics of both paradigms. The idealists tend to believe in altruistic human nature, the possibility of improving civilization, the un-inevitability of war, and the necessity for multi-lateral international efforts to eliminate war and injustice worldwide. Realists tend to believe that morals and virtues are a hindrance to the pursuit of national power, and that the effectiveness of policies should be judged on the basis of serving national interests, rather than adherence to the aforementioned principles. More controversial, are the realist views that humans are intrinsically evil, with their most prominent evil being their quest for power, and thus economics are simply a means to achieve power. Furthermore, national political allies are not reliable, and neither are international organizations; international law is not be seen as a source of protection for nation-states.

Criticisms of Realism begin by explaining that its proponents adopted it at a time when it may have been more relevant, but as the international political arena has changed, the applied perspective has not. Realism was more applicable during the middle part of the 20th century, before WWII and until the end of the Cold War, when international relations were typified by power struggles, imperialistic goals and arms races. After the end of the Cold War, when conflict was no longer a dominant feature of international relations, many realist theories became irrelevant. As a result, the realist paradigm loses its ability to predict future relationships between nation-states. As realism and the real world grow farther apart, realism also loses its ability to accurately describe the present international arena.

One important aspect to consider is that Kegley mentions is that Realism tends to prescribe policies that lead to war rather than peace. I believe that this can be explained by the fact that the perspective with which we view a situation tends to guide the decisions we make about it. As such, if a realist believes that war is inevitable, they will likely propose policy that might not necessarily cause war, but that is neglectful of the preventability of war. After all, why would a Realist try to prevent war, if he/she thought it was going to happen anyway? Instead the Realist might focus on profiting economically and socially from the war. Incorporating a moderately positive outlook on international politics is an important part of realizing positive solutions to international problems. A looking glass that is negatively tinted will darken the view on the opposite side of the glass, which is why Realist policies tend to propagate into reality the same problems that they consider imminent in the world.

In their criticism of Realism, liberalists more specifically revisit the effect of democracy on international relations, Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination, and the shifting roles of nation-states brought about by globalization among other challenges to Realist rhetoric. While the article does not mention the term ‘globalization’ I believe that globalization is reason enough to re-evaluate the paradigms used to analyze international relations. Although the current cycle of globalization began at the turn of the century, it began to reach its heights after the Cold War, when the focus of the world shifted.

The explosion of globalization to include previously ignored countries, should have spurred the search for a new paradigm, if only because new nation-states were participating in the arena. Admittedly, Kegley begins to pose these questions in 1994, and it is still unclear which paradigm dominates. I believe that the emerging paradigm must incorporate the truly realistic and moderately optimistic values of both the Realist and Idealist paradigms.