The Empire of Male’s Fear Sevda Alkan

Judith Syndrome

Judith Syndrome If Shakespeare had a sister?

Theory Concept: Women’s empowerment has come a long way and improved a lot over the last decade. However, there are still many challenges confronting women’s equality in terms of gender fairness and women’s socio-economic empowerment. Theory: If women don’t reach economic independence, they will always struggle for equality of opportunity in the society. Their main challenges are to break the barriers constructed and imposed by the patriarchal structures. Women would over come this dilemma through education. However, that would not be enough by itself without changing men’s mental representation toward women.

Quotations from readings

Approaches to Construct The Empire of Male’s Fear Theory Current approach: Essentialism Women as group lack of skill The men perception, women are emotional and can not make logical decisions They don’t speak assertively Suffer from prejudices and biases beliefs that prevent them to speak effectively on their own behalf Women communicate in particular ways because they are women The desirable approach: Constructionism Gender may give equality of opportunity Gender exists not in persons but in interactions Gender as a system of Power Relations

Gender Mainstream Development of initiatives that enable women and men-shoulder to shoulder- to formulate and express their views and to participate in decision-making process that could intervene in violence or women social issues. Women and men have different access to power and resources Gender equality has not been adopted Patriarchal structures are perpetuated in the political and economic institutions, as well as in gender situations. Women should be identified and supported for potential leadership roles.

Reasons of Inequality of Power Male dominance in patriarchal societies. Women are not as capable as men to reach the high standards in society. Not access to higher positions Not enough range of women political settings Power inequality Socio-economic The sectorial segregation measure shows that women are more limited in their choice of employment across sectors. Sectorial segregation increased over time with women moving out of agriculture in developing economies and out of industry and into services in developed economies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiN4yTLANug

Consequences of Economic inequality on women According to American Psychological Association (APA), low social economic status impact women’s lives in several dimensions: Psychologically: Living below the poverty line is one of the main causes for women to have depression and other mental health disorders. Women in low social economic status more likely to report domestic violence. Limitations in socio –economic cause also women to return an abusive relationships.

Physically Low-income women with no insurance have the risk of the breast cancer among women aged 40-64. Low- income women also experience postpartum anemia a condition which has been linked to depression. Obesity: economic depravation may contribute obesity because reducing the access of healthy food

Implementations Policies to reduce gender gaps can significantly improve economic growth and standards of living, and in developing countries can be a major contribution to poverty reduction” Encourage women to pursue higher educations in order to get better jobs and better positions in their field Men’s mental representation should change because There is distrust among the women They think that men is the figure of power; therefore, the negative image of women should be eliminated