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PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY
OF GENDER EQUALITY
IN THE SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
F. А. Akramova
This article deals with some issues of gender equality psychology in the higher education system. The results of observation and research are presented. Peculiarities of gender stereotyping in higher education are noted.
Key words: gender, psychology, gender equality, higher education, gender development, social attitudes, gender stereotypes.
Nowadays, gender has become the most important term. It was introduced, firstly, to discuss the status of women in society and the family, and later adapted by the traditional social sciences. Gender is a set of social roles in which men and women perform their unequal social roles. Gender role is a behavior in accordance with a set of certain social conditions that are addressed by society to people depending on their gender. Gender stereotypes, formed in the culture, mean a general idea of how men and women actually behave. The emergence of gender stereotypes was due to the fact that the model of gender relations, historically, was lined up in such a way that gender differences were situated above the individual, qualitative differences of a man and a woman. There are several reasons why various aspects of gender (sex) inequalities that are not related to biological differences or are not conditioned to the conscious choice become important for many countries of the world. Gender inequalities worsen the quality of human capital, are an obstacle on the way to social development, and reduce the efficiency of the economic system.
That is why achievement of gender equality is considered to be among the key goals of the millennium. It should be considered from the point of view of ensuring equal access to economic opportunities, services of education and health care, and participation in public and political life for both sexes. Without the expansion of women’s rights and opportunities, and an increase in their equality with men, other development goals, included into the Millennium Declaration, will also not be achieved. It is also important to understand that gender problems are not only the problems of unequal status of women. They are much broader. Thus, over the last decade, one could observe a considerable decrease in the duration of life of men in the European and Central Asian countries with a transition economy, as well as an increase in the share of young men who stopped learning at the stage of secondary education. Of the total number of students, who repeated the school year, there is a greater percentage of boys and young men. In addition, men are more susceptible to such defects as alcohol and drug abuse, which leads to a decrease in their social responsibility.
To assess the progress in achieving equality between men and women the following indicators were offered: (a) the ratio of girls to boys at the first, second and third levels of education (recognition of the importance of education and improvement of its content, material support and efficiency); (b) the ratio of literate women to men at the age of 15-24; (c) the ratio of women employed outside the
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agricultural sector (it is important to create more jobs and better working conditions, including the provision of secured means of subsistence); (d) the ratio of women in national parliaments (in this case it is necessary not only to increase the number of women in parliament, but also to improve the general position of women in public administration).
At the same time, we must understand that the desire to ensure gender equality does not mean the desire to eliminate the natural differences between men and women. For example, there are no reasonably justifiable reasons, for the sake of the principle of gender equality, to force women to choose the same model of career growth followed by men. Such a model would be the result of their free choice. Same rates for payment of labor of men and women are only efficient, if, on average, both gender categories make equal contribution to production. Consequently, the equality of economic outcomes, even in the statistically average calculation, is not always fair or cost-effective.
Problems of psychology of gender equality in Uzbekistan are complicated by a lack of their study and availability of different points of view to the equality of genders. Now, unfortunately, there are frequent differences between such notions as “gender problems” and “problems of women”. That is why, as experts believe, before we talk about the problems of achievement of gender equality, it is necessary to separate this concept from the so-called “women’s question”, or from mixing it with violent feminism. In the recommendations to the national Millennium Development Goals of Uzbekistan, a goal has been set, i.e. promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women. As part of its implementation, a task has been set: the elimination of gender inequality in primary and secondary school by 2005, and at all levels of education - no later than 2015. The emphasis on equality in education is not accidental: in accordance with the concept of human development, full and equal access to education for men and women is a basis for ensuring freedom of choice, at which their participation in social, economic and political life is increasing.
The state of gender development can be determined using the indicator “Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary and higher education”. In general, the situation with access to school education in Uzbekistan is favorable in the context of gender development, which is a result of active government policy. Thus, among primary school pupils, girls account for 48.9%, whereas boys - for 51.1%. The situation is similar in middle school: 48.8% and 51.2%, respectively. However, at the level of higher education, there is a marked gender imbalance: the share of women is about 39%, and men - about 61%. This situation is in many ways the result of reducing the level of subsidy of higher education, making it necessary to pay for education fully or partially. In such circumstances, parents prefer to educate sons rather than daughters. Traditional gender stereotypes that encourage girls to get married early, to give birth to children, and to work in the house, play an important role in this process. In this regard, we have empirically studied the problem of psychology of gender imbalance in education. The socio-psychological questionnaire prepared by us contained several questions focused on study of gender stereotypes, where the object of study were young men and women aged 15-17 years who studied at the Economic Lyceum at the Tashkent State Economic University. One of the questions asked by us during the study was aimed at
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identifying one’s attitude to the need for creating conditions for higher education, “For whom is it necessary to create conditions to receive higher education?” (see Table 1).
Table 1
Survey results: “For whom is it necessary to create conditions to receive higher education (%)?”
Object For a boy For a girl For a capable student Difficult to answer Boys 71.3 7.5 19.0 2.3
Girls 66.2 6.5 23.5 3.8
As can be seen from the table, as for higher education, the greatest preference is given to boys, because there are traditional stereotypes that men are the supporters of the family. This is exactly what is proved by the representatives of both sexes in the choice of a response. In their families, they can see that their fathers are the main supporters. Table 1 shows that boys and girls chose the second answer as “a capable student”. Considering that only capable young men and women study at the lyceum, the choice of this option is obvious.
The next question is aimed at identifying the attitude of the younger generation (girls and boys); adults (men and women) to the importance of getting higher education for girls (see. Table 2).
Table 2
Survey results: “Is it important to ensure that girls receive higher education?” (%)
Opinion and object “Yes” “No” “Difficult to answer
Boys 78.8 18.2 3.0
Girls 78.9 18.1 3.0
Women 71.6 24.2 4.2
Men 55.5 36.5 4.0
The obtained empirical evidence on this issue show that nowadays all the respondents of different categories approved of women getting higher education. In this case, boys, girls and, of course, women chose the answer “Yes” in the maximum ratio. This confirms our hypothesis: there are different social attitudes in relation to gender development in society, in which modern tendencies of gender relations are reflected. In summary, we can say that there is a tendency to gender equality in society, but several groups of people have some gender stereotypes.
Bibliography
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Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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