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Oppressing women impoverishs country

Published : Saturday, 30 October, 2021 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1085

Ismail Ali

Ismail Ali

Amena Begum (not her real name) will be killed if she drives a car, declares Sheikh Hazim, a tribal leader in al-Ghazi of southern Iraq. Poor social attitude towards women portrays Pori Moni, a popular Bangladeshi actress, as an insulting 'night queen' after her detention on vague allegations. Reportedly, she became a revenge target since she brought rape and murder accusations against some powerful people closely connected with country's influential politician, police, and media. New Taliban regime in Afghanistan has opened school only for boys.

Discrimination against women is a worldwide phenomenon. Only 17 percent female participate in the US Congress and 20 percent represent in the board of top UK companies. In Asia, Africa and in the Middle East, women not only face violence abuse at home, at work and in their wider communities but they are also denied opportunities to learn, to earn and to lead.

Whilst Caroline Criado claims (in her book Invisible Women) that "World is largely built for and by men", Oxfam finds, 153 countries have laws which segregate women economically, including 18 countries where husbands can prevent their wives from working. 1 in 3 women and girls experience violence or abuse in their lifetime, it added.

In my previous writings, especially Why Nations Fail, I highlighted that poverty and state insecurity are the result of civil wars--rooted in ethnicity, language, and religion--resource scarcity in a context of unequal access, being landlocked with bad neighbours, and having bad governance, among others. However, there is another fundamental and powerful explanatory factor: the treatment of women within society. The subjugation of women is not only a threat to the common security of our world but it could also make society poorer.

In a detail study "How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide" Valerie Hudson of Texas A&M University and Donna Lee Bowen and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen of Brigham Young University reveal that the larger the gender gap between the treatment of men and women in a society, the more likely a country is to be involved in intra and interstate conflict, to be the first to resort to force in such conflicts, and to resort to higher levels of violence.

Ranking 176 countries on a scale of 0 to 16 for what the authors call the "patrilineal/fraternal syndrome". This is a composite of such things as unequal treatment of women in family law and property rights, early marriage for girls, patrilocal marriage, polygamy, bride price, son preference, and social attitudes towards women (for example, is rape seen as a property crime against men?). Rich democracies such as Australia, Sweden and Switzerland all manage the best-possible score of zero. Yet, Iraq scores a woeful 15, levelled with poorer Pakistan, Nigeria, Yemen, (pre-Taliban) Afghanistan, and South Sudan. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India and most of sub-Saharan Africa do badly, too.

It would not be wrong to argue that ingrained obstacles females face begins in the womb. Families that prefer sons may abort daughters. At least 163 million girls are missing from the world's population due to sex-selective abortion (notably in China, India and the post-Soviet Caucasus region), according to the United Nations (UN) Population Fund.

That means many men are doomed to remain single and frustrated single men can be dangerous. As Lena Edlund of Columbia University and her co-authors show that in China, for every 1% rise in the ratio of men to women, violence and property crime rose by 3.7%. Parts of India with more surplus men also have more violence against women. Demographer Dudley Poston of Texas A&M University, therefore, argues this imbalance will affect both China and India's socio-economic stability and security.

Perhaps, the most socially destabilising is polygyny (where a man marries more than one woman), a common practice in many African and Arab countries. If the richest 10% of men have four wives each, the bottom 30% will have none. Insurgent groups exploit such types of male frustration to recruit. This may be the case in some of the world's most volatile poorest regions: Mali, Burkina Faso and South Sudan. Islamic State (Iraq) gave its fighters sex slaves. Boko Haram offers its troops the chance to kidnap girls. The Economist recently reported that in the north-east of Nigeria, where the jihadists of Boko Haram control large swathes of territory, 44% of women aged 15-49 are in polygynous unions.

The economic cost of oppressing women is colossal. As Oxfam estimates, gender inequality in the economy costs women in developing countries $9 trillion a year--a sum which would not only give new spending power to women and benefit their families and communities, but would also provide a massive boost to the economy as a whole. Countries with higher levels of gender equality tend to have higher income levels, and evidence from a number of regions and countries shows closing the gap leads to reduction in poverty.

Many societies are shackled by patriarchy-poverty-nexus. The culture of male domination within family structure not only contributes to domestic violence but numerous studies, including Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom, show patriarchy-poverty go hand-in-hand. Moreover, if women are subject to autocracy and terror in their homes (boys see their fathers bully their mothers, they learn to bully their future wives) nations are also more vulnerable to these ills.

Let's speak-up, break the barriers, and stop this long-standing injustice. Peace and prosperity would remain a distant dream without ending gender stereotypes, the half of humanity. As Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the UN, rightly opined, "The world is starting to grasp that there is no policy more effective (in promoting development, health, and education) than the empowerment of women and girls. And I would venture that no policy is more important in preventing conflict or in achieving post-conflict reconciliation without involving women in the process".
Ismail Ali is a London based columnist specialising in Development issues








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