The contradictions of feminism

Feminism was introduced in the 1960s and has been gaining greater attention since then. Among all the forms of feminism that exist, the most common will be the liberal feminism. Liberal feminism seeks to improve upon the rights for women and attain equal opportunities for them. While I support the feminist movement, I would like to point out that there are several issues raised by feminists that are unjustified.

 Liberal feminism has often referred the female gender as “we” to portray the idea of all women being oppressed and being denied equal opportunities as their male counterparts. This would be the greatest flaw in liberal feminism. There are many societies in the world and to group them into an entire body would be to over generalize them. Some societies are more liberal than the others and hence the problems that the women in different societies face must be tackled separately.

 

To say that women in liberal societies like the United States of America, Canada and Europe face unequal access to job opportunities, equal pay and education will be putting the issues that these women face into better perspective. Upon this point however, I would like to point out that more often than not, the extent of unfair treatment as emphasized by feminists is exaggerated. Taking the struggle that women face balancing family life and work as example, women are seen as being ‘not committed’ to their jobs once they start taking time off for their children or working part time. They will no longer be granted equal opportunities as their colleagues and will be assigned to handle unimportant tasks then. This claim cannot be further away from the truth. The reason why majority of women are facing that problem will be because of the role they play in the society. Due to social interaction, children grow up with the idea that it is usually the woman who takes greater care of her children and hence, this idea sticks with them and comes into play in the future.  Should a father have to take on the role of seeing to the upbringing of his child due to certain circumstances, he will be facing the same problem of juggling work and family life as well. We can hence see that certain issues that women face in the society are not confined to the female sex and are most definitely not targeted at women due to their sex but because of the role they play.

 

Another issue that no longer applies to the society that these women live in today will be the unequal opportunities that women have “unequal access” to, especially in the career aspect. During the world war one, women took over men’s jobs when they went to war. Since then, countless women have entered the work force and the proportion of men and women in the job industry is now on par. Also, to say that the women working the same jobs as the men and not receiving equal pay will be unjustified. In the world today, women do get equal pay rates as their male counterparts and there here will be no evidence to say otherwise. In facts, there are many instances where female job personnel receive higher pay than their male colleagues. The factor of pay depends on the nature and the responsibilities that accompany the job. Should an employee be required to travel regularly or face a higher level of risk with his job, the pay that accompanies him will definitely be of a higher level.

 

To achieve their aim of obtaining equal opportunities for all women, feminists have to come to the understanding that women in less liberal societies face different issues that most of them face. These women face problems like male domination in the family, rape, no access to education and more. Among the female convicts in the Afghan jail, two thirds of women are in there due to conviction of illegal sexual relations. Women are convicted of murdering their husbands should they disappear and no of proof is be necessary to sentence them to jail. Even victims of rape are convicted of illegal sexual relations as the Islamic rules state so. Such injustice will never be allowed to happen in a country like the United States and in fact will never have occurred to Americans that it exists. In societies like this where extreme cases of female injustice reigns, a different approach must be taken from that of more liberal societies.

 

More and more critics of the feminist movements have dismissed the feminist movement as unjustifiable and that feminists are divided amongst themselves. This division is true and must be eliminated before the hard works of existing and previous feminists are disregarded completely.

The cult of overwork

My parents both commit an average of 13 work hours a day, clocking a total of 65 hours a week. They leave the home at 8am everyday and are only back for dinner at 9pm. In the working industry today, this is the norm and in fact is expected of employees in majority of companies. The question however remains, does more working hours equate to higher profit?

 

 Let us start by examining the practices of the executives of major companies. It is normal for them to start work very early and retire only late into the night. These people sacrifice their family life for their company and built the company from scratch. When employees of these executives see that the company heads commit this many hours at work, they get the impression that this is expected of them as well  and eventually every single one of the company’s staff will be committing long hours daily. While it may seem that the productivity of the firm will increase together with the hours put in by the employee, the opposite occurs. This can be illustrated with a scenario from Arlie Hochschild’s book, The Time Bind. When the demand for a product falls, companies usually fire several employees and make the rest work harder than they did before. A major company in the United States of America, ESI faced such a situation. They decided to put a vote to the employees and decide upon laying off some or decreasing the work hours for everyone. The employees decided on fewer working hours and a lower salary for the entire staff. What was surprising however was that the company saw the productivity level remain the same. A greater surprise was that nobody wanted to go back to working a greater number of hours after the economy went back up. The above reinforces the point that longer hours not necessarily mean more work done, and that in fact shorter hours usually brings higher productivity.

 

When a machine is turned on 24 hours a day, it eventually wears down and can no longer be used. Imagine that even machines cannot take the work overload how can human beings. With long term work hours, individuals will eventually succumb to stress, disease and depression. Business time will decrease then and defeat the entire purpose of demanding ‘seat time’. It cannot be denied that some people work better with a greater time allowance but those who function better when ‘seat time’ is not demanded should be allowed to do as they wish as long as the job is done at the end of the day. Those who find that they are not able to complete the work that they have been assigned to should not commit longer hours and instead must find a better method of structuring their time. When a child has a major examination the following day, his parents will ask him to turn in earlier that night so that he will be able to concentrate the following day. Working adults should practise as they preach as well and then, he might realise that he can make better decisions with a clearer mind.

 

Some companies might be resistant to the idea of change and not welcome the idea of not measuring ‘seat time’.  These companies should realise that in environments where stress is high, there will be high employee turnover rate. The costs of searching and retraining new employees then will incur high losses for the company then. Laziness is not about doing nothing but about doing what you like to do. When employees are enjoying their work, high profits will follow.

The pay difference

Income inequality is a problem that plagues every society in the world. Today we will look at the factors that contribute to that problem and examine why certain people are not fairly compensated for their contribution to the society.

The underlying factor that will serve to explain the inequality will be environment. Most individuals will agree that the education that a child receives equips him with the skills that he will require upon entering the working industry and largely determines the success rate of his future endeavours. What will be examined now however is not simply the level or type of education that that child receives but rather the educational unit that he is enrolled in. The different environments that children are exposed to play a major role in their development, for instance a child from a wealthier family will be enrolled in a ‘better’ school and will be in contact with other children of similar financial background and hence will form a mindset similar to the children like him. He will have expectations of what he deserves, in the aspects of material good, education etc and most importantly, this forms a barrier for children not as fortunate as him from entering his ‘circle’. This barrier follows the child through his life and eventually influences his decisions on his employment candidates. Hence, it is relatively safe to conclude that the wealthier child will grow up to a financially secure future while the future of the other child remains to be seen even if both possessed the same IQ level and are equally hardworking in school.

Another factor that contributes to the income inequality will be race and ethnic group. The best country to illustrate this problem will be the United States of America, the nation with the greatest inequality gap between the wealthy and the poor. The average income of a typical white American with a masters degree is $71 184, an Asian $61 452, a Hispanic $50 901 and a Black $47 407. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States) It is apparent here that individuals of different races contributing equally to the society are being rewarded unequally and unfairly. The income disparity narrows down to racial discrimination. In the past, the Black Americans were sold as slaves to the White Americans. This continued for decades and till today, though equality among the races is no longer a foreign idea, discrimination due to difference in skin colour is common. The mindset of these Americans can be blamed for this. From decades earlier, those different from the White Americans have been viewed as of lower class and not deserving of equality. This mindset is passed on through generations and while not as extreme as before, it definitely still exists. When these people seek to be employed in a particular company, they might not be compensated the salary that they deserve. This especially applies to the Black Americans possessing the same level of education as their counterparts.

Lastly, we will have to look at the information available to the public. More often than not, it is impossible to make proper conclusions to an observational study when the figure is too insignificant as compared to the population. State figures are not readily available due to the above mentioned reason and only national figures are conclusive. This makes it impossible to single out the states that are more affected by poverty and to look at the factors contributing to the income inequality. We must realise that it is not uncommon for figures to be misleading and hence have to look closely at the national figured that have been disclosed. Another example will be household income figures that are released as well. The income difference can be influenced by the number of income earners in the family and the occupational industry that the income earner belongs to. Larger families tend to have a lower average income as the total income earned are divided over a greater number of people. Hence, a family with higher household income will not necessarily have a higher standard of living. Several factors like standard of living, individual income, household income will have to be looked at before the conclusion of income inequality is made.

Solving the problem of income inequality is a complicated process that needs careful handling. Even with help being offered from foreign parties, corruption exists and it is unclear that how much of the contribution is actually being delivered to those in need. Factors must be identified carefully so that that area can be targeted and hopefully solved.

The Amazon, another loss for the future generation

The Amazon rainforest is shared by 9 countries, among which 60% of it resides in Brazil. It is home to countless species of animals and plants – more than any other ecosystem on our planet. Unknown to many of us, this sheer wonder is being destroyed this very minute by the process of economic development.

Economic development is the underlying culprit of the depletion of the world’s largest rainforest. Wealthy capitalists have access to the valuable resources within the rainforest. These greedy groups of people clear the rainforest and exploit human labour. Workers are forced to work under insufferable conditions and are offered meagre income levels. Driven to levels of subsistence, they resort to subsistence timbering. They cannot be blamed for resorting to these means for survival, for it is the timbering that brings food to their tables.  Furthermore, subsistence timbering is not the greatest contribution to the depleting rainforest.

The short-sighted government values the rainforest as the value of timber that lies on it. While ugly, this way of thought is not unsupported. The decline in deforestation from 1988- 1991 matched Brazil’s economic slowdown and the rocketing deforestation matched the country’s rapid rate of economic growth (http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html). Without the clearing of the rainforest, the economy that relies on the rainforest to generate wealth comes to a standstill. The income required by developers and the government’s access to funds for tax offering is not generated. The choice of saving the rainforest or alleviating the people’s suffering is not ours to make and it can’t be denied that corruption exists. While the people of Brazil might not receive funds of any sort from the government, we as onlookers of the suffering should not condemn these people for needing a glimmer of hope.

It is the capitalists we have to blame for the plight of the people. Besides exploiting the abundant labour they have access to, they clear forest land for investment purposes and cattle pastureland. Their ability to obtain funds without difficulty allows them to purchase rainforest land and do as they wish. Land is cleared to make way for cattle pastureland and to build roads for easier access to transport meat to the import countries. Evidence of the increase in cattle rearing is shown by the surge in the percentage of Europe’s processed meat imports from Brazil. It has increased from a previous 40% to a current 74%, 80% of which originates from the Amazon (http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html).The leading cause of the Amazon’s depletion has to be eliminated before experts’ prediction that the rainforest will disappear within 40years is fulfilled.

Furthermore, land is often cleared in the easiest way possible – fires. Fires are set to clear trees quickly and the nutrients that come from the ashes act as fertilizers as well. At the Madre Selva biological station, it is estimated that a hectare of land holds up to 640 trees and 310 distinct tree species can be identified from among them. (http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0817-amazonas_new_tree.html) The sheer number of unidentified species of plants and animals that will cease to exist together with the rainforest alone is astounding.

Trees are being cut down faster than new ones are being planted and given the time to grow. Reforestation movements like “plant two trees for every one being cut down” and “adopt a tree plot” are just two of the many that are being widely promoted. Those of us who lack the financial ability to support these movements can contribute in their own ways: cutting down on paper consumption, recycling, reducing dependency on the forest. More individuals have to be educated on the consequences of their actions that indivertibly contribute to the rapid process of deforestation today and it has to be done quickly before it gets too late.