Women’s Progression
Anti-Sexism | Feminist Movement | UN Fourth World Conference on Women - Bejing, China | GLBTQ | INCITE | Men's Liberation | Anti-Sexism Sources
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]
Women and Employment
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. The international pattern showed that men were more likely to have full-time jobs and receive greater seniority benefits. However, women were slowly making progress in this area because universally, in 39 of 41 countries the amount of women in managing jobs increased between 1985 and 1991. However, much of what women do is 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]
Women and Poverty
As discussed at the UN FWCW, there was a rise in the amount of women living in poverty. At this time, women made up about 60 percent of the worlds rural poor. Additionally, there was a rise in with the rise in the number of female headed households, which proves problematic because although poverty affects the whole household, due to gender segregation in the workforce and inequality in the division of household labor, women bare a disproportionate burden when it comes to poverty. [5], (Hopkins, 1996)
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 represent a minority when it comes 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, there were six female heads of government in 1993, 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. [6], (Hopkins, 1996)
Women's Rights as Human Rights
