Women’s Progression

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[1]

The problems of women are not different from county to country or region to region. They only differ in intensity. - Gertrude Mongella, Secretary-General of the Conference

Women's Health

Even in industrialized nations, gender discrimination in healthcare is responsible for the deaths of many women, so the progress of women’s health was an important topic that was discussed at the UN FWCW. It was found that while women’s health in some areas had improved, in other areas it had worsened. Women’s health had improved in the fact that, life expectancy for women had increased over the last few years, while fertility and infant mortality rates had decreased. However, there was little improvement in reducing the maternal mortality rate and unfortunately, women accounted for 40 percent of HIV-infected adults. [2]

Education of Women

A mother’s literacy and education has profound implications about her children’s health and mortality rates, so women’s progression in education was another important topic that was highlighted at the UN FWCW. Women’s progress as far as education looked promising. Although girls in many countries around the world were still receiving less education than boys, it was encouraging to see that the percent of girls and women enrolled in primary, secondary, and even graduate schools was increasing. Additionally, the percent of illiterate girls and women dropped from 46.5 percent in 1970 to 33.6 percent in 1990. While there was obviously still a lot of work to be done, trends as far as women’s education looked promising and at the UN FWCW the UNICEF even predicted that by 2000 only 28.2 percent of women would be illiterate. [3]

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Women and Employment

Women have been particularly affected by economic situations across the globe, which have changed the nature of their employment and have left many professional and skilled women at a loss for jobs. Thus, the limited progress of women in the economic arena was also discussed at the UN FWCW. It was pointed out that while more women were participating in the labor market, making up 41 percent of workers in developed countries and 34 percent of workers world wide, there was still a large wage gap between men and women. Women earned 30 to 40 percent less than men for comparable work and there were many more women than men in low-paying jobs. For example in the United States, although women were making 12 cents more in 1990 than they were in 1985, they still only earned 72 cents to every dollar earned by men, and only comprised three percent of top executives. Furthermore, women did more than one-half the world’s work and two-thirds of it was unpaid, according to the UN Development Program. The international pattern also showed that men were more likely to have full-time jobs and receive greater seniority benefits. When it came to employment, women were slowly making progress because universally, in 39 of 41 countries the amount of women in managing jobs increased between 1985 and 1991. However, much of what women did was unrecognized and undervalued, so at the UN FWCW they hoped to use these statistics to better policy directives as far as women in the work force. [4]; (Hopkins, 1996)

Feminization of Poverty

As discussed at the UN FWCW, there was a rise in the amount of women living in poverty. Thus, attention was called to the increasing burden of poverty on women, which has lead to the feminization of poverty. At this time, women made up about 60 percent of the worlds rural poor. Additionally, there was a rise in the number of female headed households, which was problematic because although poverty affects the whole household, due to gender segregation in the workforce and inequality in the division of household labor, women bore a disproportionate burden when it came to poverty. [5]; (Hopkins, 1996)

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Women in Politics

Women should not be the subjects of social policies, but actors in creating those policies. (Hopkins, 1996)

Another important topic at the UN FWCW was women in the political sphere. Women represented a minority when it came to power and decision making both nationally and internationally. For example, the numbers of women parliamentarians world-wide dropped from 12.5 percent in 1975 to 10.1 percent in 1993 and there were only six female heads of government in 1993. Also, women’s representation at the Cabinet level was less than half that of all national legislatives and about 100 countries had no women in parliament at all. On a more positive note, at the end of 1993 six of the most influential positions in the UN system were held by women, and the Secretary-General committed himself to achieving a 50-50 ratio of women to men in professional posts by the year 2000. Moreover, many governments have established special offices for women’s issues and the UN Conferences on women have politicized women’s issues to an extent unprecedented in history.[6]; (Hopkins, 1996)

Women's Rights as Human Rights

The silence of the world community in the face of women’s rights violations has been almost deafening. Women’s human rights are the same, and have the same value as men’s human rights. - Gertrude Mongella, Secretary-General of the Conference

Although there is a long way to go, women’s human rights have gained increasing recognition as conferences such as the UN FWCW have brought attention to the violence, rape, torture, humiliation, anger, and anguish that are all too familiar to women across the globe. Many women’s rights watch organizations have recognized the close connection between violence at the personal and international levels, which has encouraged them to get women’s human rights onto the international and national agenda.[7]; (Hopkins, 1996; UN Chronicle, 1995)

Anti-Sexism | Feminist Movement | UN Fourth World Conference on Women - Bejing, China | GLBTQ | INCITE | Men's Liberation | Anti-Sexism Sources