Equality Through the Eyes of Society by Kubilay Akkoyun

“The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of women who are valued.” (Michelle Obama) 

In today’s world, unfortunately Women are under-valued for far too long, for a long span of time society expected women to take shape of certain patterns, had to listen and obey others’ opinion and serve men, while men were only responsible for bring home the bread for the family, besides 30 percent of women in the world state that they have been subjected to physical and / or sexual violence by their partners. 

Gender inequality has always been present in society, it was seen normal for men to dominate women in family relationships for a long time. but injustice in society and balance of power finally started to change.

As Global Pandemic continues spread all over the World, we move backward in time slowly. Earlier in 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that “COVID-19 could reverse the limited progress that has been made on gender equality and women's rights” and “Women’s leadership and contributions must be at the heart of corona virus resilience & recovery efforts.” (UN). 

With the pandemic extended into 2021, his words are looking less like a warning than a prediction. The more we stay in lockdown, the more we get to know what we really are facing. People have lost their jobs, innumerable women murdered and countless families teared apart until now and the numbers are rising every day. Across the World, women earn less, with that being said, depending on the country, women earn between 50% and 96% of men's wages(ILO), women have less secure jobs, are more likely to be employed in the informal sector and they form vast majority of single parent families. Of parents who were in paid work prior to the lockdown, mothers are one-and-a-half times more likely than fathers to have either lost their job or quit since the lockdown began. (IFS,2020) Hopefully, with the awareness of the society, we can raise a better generation which doesn’t judge people by its gender, race or traits.