Gender and Underdevelopment in Non-western Societies

In Western societies women usually hold respectable jobs, the ability to make the choices of having and taking care of the children, cleaning their homes, cooking meals, doing the laundry and, most importantly, are allowed to be seen as an equal in society. In non-western societies women usually hold degrading jobs, deliver and take care of the children, clean their homes, cook meals, do the laundry and are seen as unequal. In Third World countries, women are seen as the poorest of the poor. They are rarely ever given the same opportunities as the women in western countries, or even the ones their own husbands have.

There are two main problems which afflict non-western women. The first is the lack of access to productive resources. This means that the women of less developed countries have no capability to possess resources such as land, capital or skills. Land is not available to them because it is considered a male inheritance only. Capital is more accessible than land, due to the recent ability of women to own credit cards. Until recently, though, money was not something women could obtain very easily. Money, like land, is mostly controlled by the males of the society. Skills are not an option to women because it entails schooling which brings up the next difference.

Unequal access to education and health care is the last difference. Schooling is not usually offered to women in less developed countries. The rate of illiteracy in women is a considerable amount higher than men. In some countries the rate between illiterate women and men is doubled. Health care is more available for male children. Baby girls often die at birth, either from lack of health care or by murder. The disappointment of the family's newborn being a girl often leads to murder. Male children are seen as more valuable than female children in Third World countries.

Violence and injustices also greatly affect non-western women. Female circumcision, polygamy, the ease of divorce and violence against women, as well as the lack of access to productive resources and unequal access to education and health care, plague the women of the less developed countries. For the modernization of these non-western countries women must play a larger role than they do now. Without equality for women less developed countries cannot move forward.

These affiliations are severe but they are resolvable. The Grameen Bank is a possible solution.