NEXT Online
The process of globalisation has been used to explain the exclusion of poor countries from worldwide economic relations. The different levels at which the interaction of globalising structures have been noticed include the individual, households, and communities.
Similarly, there are multiple but interrelated levels of analysis - politics, culture, economics, ideology etc. Studies have shown that acceptance of social inequity is one of the elements of the liberal-economic conceptualisation of globalisation. Thus, the gap between various groups of people in any society or region, especially between the rich and the poor, as well as among women and men, becomes wider at every opportunity.
Economic globalisation is creating winners and losers in the global economy as a result of the lack of a level playing field for all players. Poor nations become poorer as nations (such as China, European Union, Britain, India, U.S.A. etc.) at the centre gain doubly from new technology and trade with the periphery countries (Nigeria tops the list).
The plight of the not-so-developed countries is worsening as they are continually faced with more, systemic and pressing problems than before. It is little wonder that one of the identified deleterious effects of these gaps is manifested in the various forms of injustice that permeates societies in diverse measures. Others include debts, poverty, identity politics, lack of power and participation, and so forth.
Gender relations are being transformed within the global economic restructuring, with the attendant power struggles between men and women, as well as between different groups of women and men. For instance, if the periphery nations are unable to compete with the global North in terms of economics, technology and power, they access power through culture and religion. This also applies to individual members of the society; such that when men are rendered powerless by other men at any level, they resort to exercising control over women where they perceive them as helpless. Women therefore become the losers in spaces where men are unavoidably inadequate due to poor governance.
Power and control over women
One area where the effect of this is more palpable is in the reinforcement and transmission of prevalent ideas about masculinity to exercise power and control that suppress women. Men of different ages often seek ways to express those characteristic properties and traits considered typical of that species, which they have been socialised to accept from birth. Thus, a man would do all he can to suppress his culinary talent which could give him happiness and joy in his home and even make him a more successful individual in the society.
One cannot blame such a man because if he engages in such a role that society regards as beneath real men, we label him a weakling, sissy, or woman wrapper. Similarly, if a man is supportive of his wife's/partner's career development and overall growth, he gets those labels and more, simply because "it is not in our culture". Moreover, a man who relates to his spouse/partner on an equal footing becomes the laughing stock of extended family members and nosy neighbours.
In a more bewildering situation, men could believe that women have the sole responsibility of raising the children without assessing the long-term implication! When this becomes counterproductive, they turn round and accuse women of taking away those children in whom they did not make any emotional investment.
Whereas hegemonic masculinity may appear to benefit men at women's expense, experiences have shown that there are internal contradictions, which have damaging consequences for men and the entire society as well.
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