A Worldwide Gender Gap (BAC 2006)
Women suffer countless disadvantages compared with men. Even after decades of progress, we make up two thirds of the world's 880 million illiterate adults and up to 70 percent of its poorest citizens. But the health domain remains the cruelest of all inequalities. In much of the world, women simply do not get equal medical attention. It is a fact with huge consequences for all of us. Maternal health translates into family health, because healthy women are able to care for others - and family health is the foundation of any society's health. Experiences show that even small investments in women's health can pay large social dividends. Unfortunately, few of those who could make such investments are doing so. The gender gap in health is especially dramatic in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In sub-Saharan Africa, 60 percent of all AIDS victims are women. "It is a shocking fact," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said recently, "and one of which I, as an African man, feel ashamed, that a girl in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa is six times more likely to be affected than a boy." Polygamy, sexual coercion and violence against women all contribute to this shameful fact. Girls are frequently pressured into sex with older men in exchange for food, clothing or school tuition - or forced into it for nothing. Abstinence and monogamy make for fine rhetoric, but they are inadequate defenses for women who are married off young and deprived of education and social status. In Zambia, only 11 percent of women had the right to ask their husbands to use a condom - even though women are twice as likely as men to contract HIV from a single sex act. In Senegal, at least half the women living with HIV/AIDS have no risk factor other than living in a monogamous union. In India, where 90 percent of female infections occur within marriage, women who stand up to their husbands risk violence - and those who get infected by their husbands are often shunned by their families. Lacking other skills, they may survive by selling sex - which of course, spreads the disease further. ~Any real solution to the AIDS pandemic will have to empower women through education, information and a guarantee of rights...
By Kati Marton Newsweek, May 17, 2004, p. 58
Vocabulary
Shunned by their families: kept away, with determination, from their families.
A. Guided Commentary
1) What disadvantages do women suffer, according to the text? (2 points)
2) Referring to the text, explain why "family health is the foundation of any society's health." (3 points)
3) In what domains is "the gender gap" crucial? Illustrate your answer with examples taken from the text. (4 points)
4) Do you think that the gap between men and women can disappear in Africa? Justify your answer. (5 points)
B. Translation (6 points)
Translate paragraph n°2 into French: From "The gender gap in health is especially dramatic..." down to "... forced into it for nothing."