Perspectives on Gender and Inequality

Abstract

Societies within them are unequal in certain respects or the other. A host of factors in the economic, social, political, and cultural realms contributed to this inequality. For instance, misconceived economic posture generate deprivation depending on defective distribution of wealth and control of the means of production at its disposal. Impoverished social conditions, a direct fall out of wrong economic structures, may drive the poor to extreme periphery of an unbecoming social life, resulting in marginalization. They lose asset base, lack amenities, and fail to meet the required standards of education, health, nutrition, and opportunity for a healthy lifestyle. Centralized power, exercise of political control, and curtailing civil liberties limit human rights and induce a rationale for discrimination. Culture on its part is subject to value erosion impacting social life more so in a hierarchical society. Unfair economic structures legitimized by the state political apparatus may results in endorsing a degraded culture with moral sanctity. It is essential to study inequality through this frame of reference of vulnerability created by multiple factors at interplay in any society. This study aims to probe into the factors contributing to inequality, from a vulnerability perspective of multiple causation. It applies the vulnerability perspective in the study of gender inequality to identify major factors of causation The first of these are extrinsic factors while the other two are individual-centric. The factors of causation discussed here are Tradition, Religion, Role, and Sexual Identity.