Atlas of Women in the World

The United States of America

             In the United States, one of the biggest issues is discrimination, which is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. One hundred and fifty-eight countries have signed and ratified the Convention, which gives full equality for women. There is only one country, the United States, which has signed the Convention without ratifying it, which means that the United States is not bound by the treaty.

            Since the year 2006, the United States of America has had the highest number of women in the military. Women have run fifteen percent of the United States Armed Forces. The United States has had forty-seven women generals under active duty and this number may have risen since 2006. On a sad note, their fellow soldiers have sexually assaulted many women serving in the United States military in Iraq. Although the United States has had the most women on active duty in the military, women still have restrictions against them holding certain military posts. Social construction is what has created much debate over women serving in the military. The social constructions of femininity and masculinity shape these debates over whether women should be able to serve in the military.

            Women undergo a huge amount of pain and suffering in order to look beautiful. This is something we see around the world, but more so in the rich countries. Globalization is accelerating and more and more countries are joining in the Western beauty bandwagon. Weight and body image have become a big deal in society and it is portrayed everywhere, especially in the media. In the US, keeping up with society’s standards of beauty has become a huge priority in the lives of women and girls. The United States has the largest cosmetic market with the beauty industry bringing in fifty billion dollars in 2007. It was also noted that 11. 7 million cosmetic surgeries were done in the year 2007 and ninety-one percent of those cosmetic procedures done were performed on women.

Mexico

            In Mexico, the work that women do is unaccounted for and is considered unpaid work. Each week in Mexico, women spend the highest number of hours on cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. The unpaid labor of sustaining families and households represents a big part of daily life that is usually overlooked in official accounts. Overall, women work more hours each day than men, rests less, and perform a greater variety of tasks. The ratio of hours working from women to men is 7:2. In Mexico, women are the responsible ones for household labor. Men and women who share a household do not share household labor or split it up between each other. There have been attempts to change this imbalance in household work, but it has been fiercely resisted because of political struggles over gender roles.

            Mexico is the highest major migrant-sending country with its annual outflow of women workers reaching 414, 733 in the year 2000. Migration from Mexico has accelerated with women becoming labor migrants in richer countries. The women working overseas from Mexico and other poorer countries tend to be concentrated in a few occupations, particularly domestic help, labor-intensive factory work producing cheap plastic crap, and entertainment. This is not the kind of entertainment you are probably thinking of, this form of entertainment is usually sexual. Sex traffickers (usually men) often find out where these migration streams let out and lure these immigrant women to come “work” for them. These women usually get offered a large sum of money and they often times will fall for it because they are poor and have no money. This is a huge issue between poor Mexicans who migrate to richer countries.

            The country of Mexico has been flooded with crisis, both armed conflict and economic conflict. Mexicans have been struggling with drug wars in the past few years, which have left many Mexicans struggling for survival amongst great odds. The drug wars have created a civil war, which has involved the deliberate targeting of civilians. This civil war has made it highly unsafe to travel into Mexico. As a result of the ethnic tensions and internal conflict in Mexico, prostitution and the trafficking of girls and women has increased dramatically.

Democratic Republic of Congo

            In the Democratic Republic of Congo, HIV and AIDS patients are of little to no help because of their lack of access to medical advances. Most will die from this disease if they have no access to medicine. Here alone, there are 680,000 children who are AIDS orphans because their parents died of AIDS. More than half of those who are infected with AIDS in the DROC are women. In this country, women have barely any social standing and men have the control, even over a woman’s sexuality. Sexual relations between men and women are often framed through violence, coercion, and as a “man’s right” to have sexual access to women. In these areas, polygamy is also practiced which already leads to women being at a higher risk than men. The risk of contracting the disease is so high that men seek out young girls as sexual partners to lower their chances of becoming infected with HIV.

            Access to clean water is a big issue in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Less than fifty percent of the population has access to an improved water source. This improved water source could be a tap stand, a well or a protected spring, and is not always considered as a household tap where you just turn the faucet and fresh water flows out. This is something you find in richer countries. In this country in particular, women and girls are the water haulers, meaning that in developing countries, girls walk over six kilometers carrying over twenty liters of water. This is why women in this country are limited to participating in getting an education. Water sources become more important because water is necessary for survival.

            Thirty percent of the populations in the DROC do not have access to a clean sanitation system. Due to this sanitation shortfall, this makes the task of household work more difficult. Because women must use open, insecure, shared, or distant sanitation facilities, they become more highly susceptible to diseases and attack, especially at night. Most people do not have access to any type of improved sanitation facility which can be deadly is feces get ingested in some way.

Russia

            This country struggles highly with global sex trafficking. In general, in order for international sex trade to survive, there must be economic disparity in the country. In Eastern Europe, their economy has gone on a downward spiral and as poverty has deepened itself, the region becomes a major area for prostitutes. Then, the countries that are their outliers could have a thriving economy, making those males feel more “entitled” to having prostitutes. For example, in China and Malaysia, their wealth has been increasing and as this happens, men in those countries find an increase in demand for women and girls. Russia has the highest number of mail-order brides and most of these women and girls were hired under false pretences, either as maids or waitresses and then forced into prostitution. These girls undergo so much sexual trauma because this global sex trade is sustained by sexual violence, including rape, coercion, and torture.

            The most legal abortions done since the year 2003 was in Russia and the numbers on average were around 54,000 women from the ages of fifteen to forty-four. In Russia, abortions are legal but have some gestational limits, similar to here in the USA. The seventies and eighties was when people began voting toward more liberal abortion laws. Just because the abortion procedure is available, doesn’t necessarily mean that that it is available to everyone, it comes at a cost. Usually a very high cost and insurance companies in most cases do not cover abortions because it is too controversial a topic. In Russia, their government has undercut the availability to abortion services and since their government is economically weak, they are unable to support and fund it. Therefore, even though it is legal in Russia, it is under supported.

            Violence against women is something that is prominent in many cultures. It is astonishing to see how many women have been killed in Russia due to domestic violence. Nine thousand women were murdered, which is 32% of the total murders in Russia. It has been noted in the Penguin Atlas of Women in the World that in most cases “ordinary” domestic violence culminates into murder, usually when the women tries to flee the abusive relationship. Murders amongst women are very much so culture based and place based and it usually revolves around enacting some kind of revenge. It is very sad to see the giant bar chart for Russia. 

Work Cited

Seager, Joni. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World: Completely Revised and Updated. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. Print.