Socio Economic Status Essay

3.2 Socio-Economic Status

In Bangladesh socio-cultural and economic conditions tend to put women in a less favourable position. That is said, women in Bangladesh are certainly not a homogenous group. They are of different classes, such as rich, middle class and poor and they come from various cultural and ethnic minority groups. In a male dominant society, like Bangladesh, the status of women depends on the gender though women are playing an important role in the society. The girl children often suffer the worst kind of discrimination with respect to such basic human necessities such as intra household distribution of food, clothes and access to education (Islam, 2007, p.27). Many women in Bangladesh are living as a second class citizens;

Men think that women are their property, dictate their sexual activity and treat them as a commodity rather than as a human being. Because of this kind of social structure most of the women have the mentality to tolerate torture and to permit impliedly inhuman treatment to them (Farouk, 2005). Hence, in societies constructed and dominated by men, men have been enjoying and enforcing a superior status while women have continued to remain subjugated and subjected to all the associated disadvantages and sufferings. There may have been some exceptions here and there in history but by and large this has remained basically true till today around the world (Ahmad, 2014, p.08).

Women's rights are definitely still an issue in Bangladesh and although the situation is starting to become better, this happens at a very slow speed (Hasin, 2005). Neal Walker, the UN resident Coordinator to Bangladesh (2011-2014) states about the real picture of women’s status, "Bangladesh is an interesting country-case where major milestones have been achieved in women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in achieving parity in primary education. Yet, much remains to be done. For instance, over 60% of all women continue to face at least one form of violence during their lifespan" (Walker,