GENDER ISSUES & UNDERSTANDING AND REDUCING RACIAL AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE   

Gender issues include all aspects and concerns related to women’s and men’s lives and situation in society, to the way they interrelate, their differences in access to and use of resources, their activities, and how they react to changes, interventions and policies. Gender equality is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations and needs equally, regardless of gender. Gender equality is the goal, while gender neutrality and gender equity are practices and ways of thinking that help in achieving the goal. Gender parity, which is used to measure gender balance in a given situation, can aid in achieving gender equality, but is not the goal in and of itself. Gender equality is more than equal representation, it is strongly tied to women's rights, and often requires policy changes.

When will society be gender just?

In post-industrial liberal-democratic societies, opinions vary dramatically on whether these societies are gender just. Both scholars and the wider public disagree on this question. Newspaper articles, television programs and other public debates indicate that gender inequality is not only a topical but also a controversial issue, on which many people have strong views. As Deborah Rhode argues, some claim that unjust inequalities between women and men no longer exist, or that women's liberation has achieved more than enough, and these days it is men who are suffering discrimination. Others disagree, and argue that unjust inequalities to the disadvantage of women remain, despite the post-feminist discourse. One might expect that the literature in inequality studies, and related fields in the social sciences and political philosophy, would be able to assess these conflicting claims, and inform us of the nature and extent of unjust gender inequalities. Unfortunately, this is not really the case: there are very few systematic studies that provide a satisfying answer to this question. The reason for this is that an adequate answer to this question requires both normative theorizing and empirical analyses. Normative political philosophers are concerned with the first, while social scientists specialize in empirical research. But most theoretical studies do not engage with empirical analysis, and more empirical studies are not based on a well-elaborated underlying theory of gender justice.

Sexism

Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to stereotypes and gender roles, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Gender discrimination may encompass sexism, and is discrimination toward people based on their gender identity or their gender or sex differences. Gender discrimination is especially defined in terms of workplace inequality. It may arise from social or cultural customs and norms.

Understanding and reducing racial and ethnic prejudice.

There are a wide variety of explicit and implicit measures of children’s and adolescents’ racial and ethnic attitudes. The developmental appropriateness of various measures of racial attitudes is an important consideration. Young children who need help with reading typically complete measures with the help of an adult such as a research assistant, teacher, or teacher aide whereas older children complete measures or surveys concerning their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs on their own and thus are given greater privacy. Some measures are developed first with an adult or adolescent samples and then simplified to be used with younger samples. Pictorial versions of response sets might be presented to young children instead of text-only response sets given to older children and adolescents. A standard Likert5-point response scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree might be amended with schematic faces that are smiling or frowning for use with younger children. Future work is needed to affirm the predictive validity of various measures and to affirm the existence of a differentiation between implicit and explicit attitudes in very young children. It is important for researchers to make strides in racial attitude measurement as they make strides in racial attitude.