Why do women still experience inequality in countries with liberal democratic governments? Examine the solutions that feminists propose.

Women Inequality in Liberal Democracies

Introduction

When democratic systems and states first evolved in ancient Greece women were not considered as part of the politically active demos , just as they were publicly insignificant under previous hierarchical ruling systems . Despite the rapid industrialization and revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries , women 's role in democratic governments did not significantly improve until the turn of the twentieth century , when , generally , women finally attained the right to formally participate in the voting process , even though in some countries , such as Switzerland , the

right to vote had only been attained by women as late as the 1980s (Dunn , 1992

Although democracy , as a system of government , has continually evolved to better enhance its core concepts of public participation and equality , such as in the birth of liberal democracy , where the liberalist concepts of freedom and individualism are combined with the equality of democracy , the fate and condition of women have not significantly changed . Issues like wage differences between male and females , differential public representation and the fundamental patriarchal structure of the society still ensures that women experience grave inequalities even under liberal democratic governments . For instance , in terms of wage difference , it is reported that women 's average hourly pay for full time work represents just about 88 percent of her male counterpart compared to the most males working full time only about 41 percent of women work full time , while about two-thirds of the poorest pensioners are women in Britain . Also , in public representation , it is estimated that at the current rate of progress , it would take 200 years for women to gain a fair share of power in Britain (Equal Opportunities , 2007

Liberal Democracy and Feminism

Liberal democracy developed at about the same time as feminism , and is now accepted as the status quo in several western nations , though the issues that gave birth to the feminist movements still remain in contention . Liberal democracy sought to further extend the reach of democracy while the latter encouraged and ensured public participation in governance , it is further strengthened by the liberalist concepts of 'freedom , the right of every individual to define his /her live (Beetham , 1993

Feminism , as it is presently envisioned was borne out of the French Revolution of the eighteenth century . The call of Olympe de Gouges in the Paris Commune of 1793 that if a woman has the right to ascend the scaffold , she must also have the right to ascend the rostrum ' gave rise to the first feminist movement . This was significantly followed by Elisabeth Cady Stanton and her colleagues ' call for women 's right during the anti-slavery movements of the nineteenth century United States (Wilford , 1994 . Although the feminist movements proffer different reasons for the continued subordinate role of the women in the society and have all offered several varying solutions to these problems , all feminists movement have fundamentally accepted that women are oppressed in the society and that the current societal structure and ruling systems must be...