Lauren Luo

Hon English 12
Feminism And Gender Inequality in Asia
After entering into the 21st century, the position of women in Asia has been increased
to a certain degree along with the enhanced self-protection awareness of women as
well as the improved educational level of women. However, compared of men,
women are still suffering the gender inequality in various aspects of life, such as the
treatment in the workplace, the unequal opportunity to access to the higher position of
work. And in some countries in Asia, such as India, the position of women is much
lower compared that of men (Cornell, 2008, p. 83). Under this circumstance, in order
to realize the gender equality, there are several ways proposed by people to help deal
with this issue.
The first method to deal with the gender inequality is through the law methods.
According to the analysis of Cornell (2008), in order to guarantee the equal rights to
women, the governments should set up the clear law and regulation to protect women.
In other words, the government should guarantee the rights to women through the
written laws, which should not be broken by anyone. Regarding this method, the
advantage of it is that, with the protection of law, women can be active to fight against
their own rights such as the equal wages with men in workplace or the rights to
participate in the political discussion. However, regarding this method, there are also
some disadvantages or weaknesses of it. For example, in China, women are
guaranteed with the right to make public speech just as men did. However, the fact is

that, women are not willing to participate in the sensitive politics to some extent,
which impedes the maintenance of the gender equality.
Besides, another method goes to the education, which is to cultivate the
awareness of gender equality for both women and men through the education system
(Chapman, 2003, p. 36). To be specific, this method means that, people should be
educated in school about the gender equality, so as to set to the sense of equality when
they are young. Generally speaking, this method can provide a good foundation for
the development of gender equality since the education is the best and more direct
way to arouse the attention of people, especially the girls to gain their equality and
break down the stereotype designed for girls (Chapman, 2003, p. 45). But it is hard to
measure the effects of the education, because in school, there are indeed some
teachers who stick to the stereotype respectively designed for girls and boys. In this
sense, too much emphasis on gender may cause the opposite effects.
Based on the above illustration, as far as I am concerned, the process to fully
realize the gender equality is not easy to finish, but no matter what, the first step is to
educate ourselves not to judge people by gender. In other words, the existence of
feminism is because of the gender inequality in the society. When all of us can treat
men and women equally, the problem of gender inequality would not be a problem for
the society.

References:
Cornell, Drucilia, 2008. At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex, and Equality.
Princeton University Press.
Chapman, Jenny L. 2003. Politics, feminism, and the reformation of gender. London:
Routledge.