Discrimination by Gender

Essay by yy800513 April 2006

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According to the American Heritage Dictionary, discrimination is treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice. To discriminate against people before you even know about them is not a good attitude. However, discrimination often happens in our life. Not only a person's stereotyping influences discrimination, but also culture could influence discrimination a lot. In my country, Korea, our culture and social system have more strict limits for women. For example, women can not smoke cigarette on the street, but men can. Women are not considered equal to men. Therefore, Korean culture has a different standard for women than men. Because Korea has a chauvinistic culture, the parents desire male children and the males have more rights than females.

One of the aspects of discrimination in Korean culture is that people want to have male babies rather than females babies. Our culture is pretty much focused on men, therefore, a women's position is less than men's.

Even though, nowadays, many women are working and have good positions as much as men, our traditional culture influences strong impact on sexes. Therefore, many parents still desire to have sons more than daughters. Almost all fathers want to have a son, because they want to keep their clan. Moreover, mothers also want to have a son because they do not want their daughters to have some disadvantages in the future. Mothers know there are many disadvantages for women in the Korean culture due to their personal experiences. The main reason that Koreans prefer boys to girls is the idea that only sons can keep continue the family heritage. In traditional Korean cultures the eldest son of the family usually lives with his parent after he is married. The eldest son's role is to support his...