Gender Discrimination In Education Around The Globe

We had a class discussion a few weeks ago about gender discrimination in graduate programs based on  how women were judged based on how they dressed for the interview. I found this very interesting and looked further into gender discrimination in education. Not only in America but across the globe. I was shocked as I stumbled across the Global Campaign For Education, a civil society movement working to end the global education crisis. They have an ongoing gender survey conducted in schools from countries including Bangladesh, Bolivia, Nepal, Peru, Vietnam, Pakistan and Cambodia. Their aim is to highlight the inequalities between girls and boys experiences in school and to encourage the international community and national governments to end these gender inequalities to bring about an end to gender discrimination.

I was surprised to find out that 1 in 5 school girls were "unhappy to be a girl". Girls around the world face gender discrimination starting at the age of seven years old. Some of the reasons from the results of the survey as to why these young girls were unhappy included restrictions on freedom, lack of opportunities compared to boys, feeling that they were less safe or faced more harassment and even parental preference for their male siblings. It's sad to say that some parents either are more interested in their son's education rather than their daughters or some parents rather their daughter not have an education at all in these countries. Girls were even seen as being better at "soft" subjects such as languages, history, art and music and of course boys were "better" at sports,mathematics and computing. Do you as a female think that your better at these subjects that girls "tend" to be better at ? What about the males who are reading this. Are you interested in the subjects that you are said to be better at or the "soft" subjects that was listed for girls? Students also felt that male teachers were "more intelligent" than female teachers but female teachers were "more caring" than male teachers. Its obvious that these countries are making girls feel inferior to boys from young ages based on these surveys. These girls are growing up and most likely teaching their daughters the same things that they were taught therefore continuing this gender inequality gap.

Below is a video from the Campaign for Education website emphasizing education for young girls.



This is another video which display the lives of two girls born on the same day, one without an education and one with an education, and how the impact of an education made their lives completely different.



Below is also a link to an interesting tool on the Global Campaign for Education website allowing you to create a person, male or female based on your age, the country you are from, your level of education and your interest of study. You will be surprised at the results of the progress and pitfalls of girls and women education around the world compared to the person you have made. You can make as many different people as you want but of course you should try yourself first!

http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Pages/mind-the-gap.aspx?SPSLanguage=EN

If you are interested in reading more about gender discrimination in education, below is a link to to a report submitted by the Global Campaign for Education to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

http://campaignforeducation.org/docs/reports/GCE_INTERIM_Gender_Report.pdf