Women and stereotypes in Greece

Did you know that one woman or girl is killed by someone in her family every 11 minutes, or that it could take another 286 years to remove discriminatory laws for women and girls? Well, it is true and it is a result of gender inequality.

My country, Greece, is one of those countries that have not achieved gender equality. One of the most important problems that needs urgent fixing is gender inequality in jobs. It is thought that women are not capable enough to work as police officers, for example, or firefighters who require physical strength and resistance. Even if women manage to get into this type of jobs, they will most likely not get paid enough. In Greece it is a fact that women earn 77 cents in every dollar a man earns. This problem impacts our community and we need to find an immediate solution.

People in the space industry are impacted by gender inequality as well. One of the main problems are the spacesuits, which are built and developed based on the needs and body types of men. Although, nowadays, this problem is getting dealt with, it still exists. Another problem that preserves and iterates gender inequality and I believe it is the most difficult to fix are stereotypes. They are passed from generation to generatio and it can often be reinforced through media and religion. A stereotype that is still used to this day is that the colour pink is a feminine one while the colour blue is a masculine one. The same thing happens with toys, since there are toys assigned to girls and other ones assigned to boys. That leads to children having these beliefs for the rest of their lives and it impacts the new generations. That is why this problem will probably need a lot of time to completely disappear.

In a nutshell, there are a ton of gender inequality problems in my country that are not going to die soon, but I believe that if we try to spread awareness as a community, we will be able to at least reduce them.