Seven Types of Gender Inequality: Dr. Meet Associate Professor Department of English Govt. National College, Sirsa

SEVEN TYPES OF GENDER INEQUALITY
DR. AMARTYA SEN
Dr. Meet
Associate Professor
Department of English
Govt. National College, Sirsa
Prof. Amartya Sen
◦ Prof Amartya Sen is a well-known economist who was honoured with the Nobel Prize in
Economics in 1998.
◦ Amartya Sen, was born on November 3, 1933 at Santiniketan India
◦ Sen was educated at Presidency College in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He went on to study
at Trinity College, Cambridge
◦ He taught economics at a number of universities , including the Universities of Jadavpur
(1956–58) and Delhi (1963–71), the London School of Economics, the University of
London (1971–77), and the University of Oxford (1977–88), before moving to Harvard
University (1988–98), where he was professor of economics and philosophy.
Prof. Amartya Sen
◦ In 1998 he was appointed master of Trinity College, Cambridge—a position he held until
2004, when he returned to Harvard as Lamont University Professor.
◦ He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998.
◦ Prof. Sen is a staunch rationalist who has made a keen study of poverty and famines, and
other issues related to the society.
◦ He also worked on discrimination against women and popularized the concept of
“missing women”
◦ The present essay is an extract from Prof. Sen’s inauguration lecture for the new Radcliff
Institute at Harvard University delivered on 24th of April, 2001.
Gender
◦ DICTIONARY
Either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to
social and cultural differences rather than biological ones.
◦ Gender is the state of being male or female in relation to the social and cultural roles that
are considered appropriate for men and women.
◦ Different from biological sex- no concept of inequality- difference
◦ Gender- Inequality and discrimination- superiority and inferiority
Seven Types of Gender Inequality
◦ IT was more than a century ago, in 1870, that Queen Victoria wrote to Sir Theodore
Martin complaining about "this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights’.”
◦ The formidable empress certainly did not herself need any protection that the
acknowledgment of women's rights might offer.
◦ Even at the age of eighty, in 1899, she could write to A.J. Balfour, "We are not interested
in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist." That, however, is not the way most
people's lives go - reduced and defeated as they frequently are by adversities.
◦ Wicked- evil/ wrong
◦ Folly- lacking sense - foolishness
◦ Formidable- causing fear or respect- impressive or powerful
◦ Adversities- difficult situation
◦ And within each community, nationality and class, the burden of hardship often falls
disproportionately on women.
◦ The afflicted world in which we live is characterised by deeply unequal sharing of the
burden of adversities between women and men.
◦ Hardship- suffering
◦ Disproportionately- more than it should
◦ Afflicted- suffer from
◦ Gender inequality exists in most parts of the world, from Japan to Morocco, from
Uzbekistan to the United States of America.
◦ However, inequality between women and men can take very many different forms.
Indeed, gender inequality is not one homogeneous phenomenon, but a collection of
disparate and interlinked problems.
◦ Let me illustrate with examples of different kinds of disparity.
◦ Homogeneous-of same kind/ uniform
◦ Disparate- different/ things unlike
Mortality inequality
◦ 1) Mortality inequality: In some regions in the world, inequality between women and
men directly involves matters of life and death, and takes the brutal form of unusually
high mortality rates of women and a consequent preponderance of men in the total
population, as opposed to the preponderance of women found in societies with little or no
gender bias in health care and nutrition. Mortality inequality has been observed
extensively in North Africa and in Asia, including China and South Asia.
◦ Mortality- death rate
◦ Brutal-cruel/ violent
◦ Preponderance- great amount of / majority of
◦ Bias- inclination/ prejudice
◦ Extensively- in a way that covers a large area
Natality Inequality
◦ Natality inequality: Given a preference for boys over girls that many male-dominated
societies have, gender inequality can manifest itself in the form of the parents wanting the
newborn to be a boy rather than a girl.
◦ There was a time when this could be no more than a wish (a daydream or a nightmare,
depending on one's perspective), but with the availability of modern techniques to
determine the gender of the foetus, sex-selective abortion has become common in many
countries.
◦ Manifest- display/ show
◦ Nightmare- unpleasant dream
◦ Perspective- view/ outlook
◦ Foetus- a human being or animal as it is developing in the uterus
Natality Inequality
◦ It is particularly prevalent in East Asia, in China and South Korea in particular, but also
in Singapore and Taiwan, and it is beginning to emerge as a statistically significant
phenomenon in India and South Asia as well. This is high-tech sexism.
◦ Prevalent- happening often/ widespread

◦ Sexism- prejudice or discrimination based on sexism
Basic Facility Inequality
◦ Basic facility inequality: Even when demographic characteristics do not show much or
any anti-female bias, there are other ways in which women can have less than a square
deal. Afghanistan may be the only country in the world the government of which is keen
on actively excluding girls from schooling (it combines this with other features of
massive gender inequality), but there are many countries in Asia and Africa, and also in
Latin America, where girls have far less opportunity of schooling than boys do.
◦ Demographic- related to structure of population

◦ A square deal- fair treatment
◦ Massive- large
Basic Facility Inequality
◦ There are other deficiencies in basic facilities available to women, varying from
encouragement to cultivate one's natural talents to fair participation in rewarding social
functions of the community.
◦ Deficiencies- inadequacy
◦ Cultivate-develop / improve
Thank You

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SEVEN TYPES OF GENDER INEQUALITY

DR. AMARTYA SEN

◦ Prevalent- happening often/ widespread

◦ Demographic- related to structure of population

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