Protection and Abuse: The Conundrum of Global Gender Inequality

What is it about?

Gender inequality is deliberate, universal, and exploitative by design. While gender is embedded in many types of inequality, such as vital inequality and resources inequality, it is also foundational to those other forms. Furthermore, gender inequality entails a seldom discussed form of inequality, which Kitch calls protective inequality. In this chapter Kitch validates these arguments through global examples and a historical case study of the gendered foundations of racial inequality in the United States. She also demonstrates the persistence of gender inequality over time through analyses of coverture, which mandated women’s dependence on men and denied them access to economic resources and opportunities in the United Kingdom and United States into the twentieth century, and sexual violence and harassment, which effectively impose analogous restrictions on women’s lifeways and economic prospects in the present day.

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