The truism that gender discrimination is a drawback in every society in the world cannot be overemphasized. Cultural and religious practices in developing countries have made gender discrimination against women worse, which has an impact not only on women's lives but also on the overall development of these countries. Nigerian society is fundamentally patriarchal, which enables men to dominate women. Women have suffered immense discrimination, rejection, and deprivation as a result of gender bias. Discrimination against women in rural areas from any socio-cultural and religious perspective affects their roles in society. This thesis, therefore, explores gender discrimination against women within the context of religion and culture. The findings reveal that gender discrimination has its roots in people's religion, culture, and tradition, and that this discrimination fosters low self-esteem and increases poverty, having a negative impact on women's empowerment.
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Gender discrimination has been a prominent concern in women's history. Throughout the world, most women do not have an equal share of land, credit, education, employment, and political power in comparison to the men of their society. However, women serve important roles in every culture. For instance, they do the majority of “unpaid” and underappreciated home labour and make a sizable contribution to agricultural productivity in rural areas. Women grow around half of the world's food, and two-thirds of women labourers in developing nations work in the agricultural sector (Olanrewaju, 2018). Discrimination against women is a widespread and expensive problem. Everywhere, women have a harder time than men getting access to political influence, commercial activity, and resources for health and education.
Women make up roughly half of the Nigerian population and are known to play critical roles as mothers, producers, managers, community developers and organizers, and so on. Their contribution to the social and economic development of societies is also more than half that of men by virtue of their dual roles in the productive and reproductive spheres. Yet their participation in formal and informal structures and processes, where decisions regarding the use of societal resources generated by both men and women are made, remains insignificant (Makama, 2013). Nigerian society has historically been patriarchal, and this has set the parameters for women’s structurally unequal position in families and markets. Also, this culture of patriarchy is a very strong determinant of male dominance over females, and as a result, men will sit back in the family to keep the family name and lineage growing while women will be married out. Thus, men are being trained for leadership roles, while women are confined to domestic activities; roles ascribed to them by culture that affect them later in life, causing them to lose self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem in their adult life, including politics (Makama, 2013).
It is unarguable to assert that the practices of religion and culture have existed from time immemorial in a society where their adherents outlive their socio-religious and cultural tenets. To that end, religion and culture gave rise to an ethical formation, describing what is good and bad, describing roles and characteristics that are formally attributed to neither a man nor a woman, boy nor a girl, thus defining gender. Gender became a societal force that constructed a generally perceived pattern of characteristics and roles assigned to men and women as a result of sex. This concept metamorphosed into a norm and gradually became a culture that has a negative impact on women amid globalization. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the role of culture and religion in enhancing gender discrimination.