Running head: PERCEPTION ON GENDER 1

A Survey on the Perception of CFS IIUM Female Population on Gender Discrimination in Education Wan Nur Amni binti Wan Azmi 114994 Centre of Foundation Studies, Petaling Jaya International Islamic University of Malaysia

English for Academic Writing LE 4000 Section 191 Tutor: Miss Cathrine Boudville

30th April 2013

2 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Abstract Gender discrimination in education is the most prevalent issue in many developing countries such as Nigeria, Iran, and Bangladesh. Though, equity in access to education is achieved in Malaysia, gender discrimination in education persists to exist especially in technical science fields such as engineering. The purpose of this survey was to investigate the perception of the female population in the Centre for Foundation Studies, International Islamic University of Malaysia (CFS IIUM) on gender discrimination in education. Besides that, this research was also conducted to find out the way to address gender discrimination in education. Results show that the main contributing factor to gender discrimination in education was the traditional gender role of women, whereas the best way to address gender discrimination is by the empowerment of the women themselves in order to express their educational aspirations. Thus, it is recommended that further research should be done on ways to educate and motivate women to be more holistic and courageous in their pursuit of knowledge. Keywords: education, gender discrimination, gender role, perception, women

3 PERCEPTION ON GENDER A SURVEY ON THE PERCEPTION OF CFS IIUM FEMALE POPULATION ON GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN EDUCATION Gender discrimination has been a phenomenon faced by almost any woman in Malaysia, whether she is aware of it or not. This social injustice is deeply rooted in the culture of Malaysians, and women in Malaysia has come to accept it as natural to be treated as inferior and secondary to their male counterparts. The Malaysian culture, since its ancestors timeline, has always given the role of domestic tasks to women, be it young girls or women in their early adolescence. For example, they must take care of younger siblings, cook meals, clean the house, and stay at home while their male siblings are free to wander outside and play with their friends. Sadly, this is a true fact for most girls especially those living in remote areas (Mullins, 1998). In education, most women experience differential treatment from their families and the society. This attitude came from the thoughts that women will eventually end in the kitchen even if they achieve high education. A woman is not encouraged to pursue education at higher levels, a lot of them stop enrolling in formal education after secondary level or only venture halfway in tertiary level. This is unacceptable because every person should be given the right to make choices and decisions on their education, despite their gender (Adhikari, 2008). Gender discriminations against women are difficult to be eliminated completely, because Malaysian women perceive such treatment as their fate and acceptable in their culture. If a woman complains or fights against it, she will be frowned upon by society, and her action will be seen as going against the established norm of her culture. Furthermore, they are often oppressed, with no legal recourse as paternalism and gender gap are deeply ingrained in the norms of society (Binelli, 2003).

4 PERCEPTION ON GENDER However, there are few studies established regarding this issue in Malaysia and no studies found on it in the Centre of Foundation Studies, International Islamic University Malaysia (CFS IIUM). Pertaining to this reason, the researcher is interested to investigate the perception of the female population in the institution on gender discrimination in education and the approaches to eliminate it. With respect to this, the purpose of this study was to identify womens perception on gender discrimination in education and to explore the ways that can be used to address gender discrimination on educational aspect. Hence, the research question studies on what are the factors that influence gender discrimination in education based on the womens perception and what are the ways to address gender discrimination in education. There are a few limitations imposed on this study, in which the study depends only on the perception of women on gender discrimination in education. Thus, the data of male perceptions are absent to accomplish the purpose of this study. Also, the researcher has limited the study to the population of female students and staff age 20 and above in CFS IIUM. In the past, education has always been considered as a privilege, not a right, and only those who come from high socio-economic background family can get formal education. The pursuit of knowledge is regarded as the male domain, where women are excluded until only in recent decades (Andersen, 2003). When public education that welcomes both genders was introduced, a lot of studies found that women are more likely to complete high school education compared to men. Despite the high admittance of women in education, a hidden boundary has been imposed that limits their knowledge to certain grounds, namely education, arts, humanities, social sciences, and law. The gender gap in curriculum has caused imbalances of female and male graduates in sciences, mathematics, and engineering fields (Bradley as cited in Andersen, 2003).

5 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Besides that, gender discrimination also occurs in the form of stereotype threat. The negative stereotypes that befall female students are shown to deteriorate their academic achievement. For instance, if a teacher in a class stereotypes that women perform worse in mathematics than men, the female students will be posed with a perception that they cannot excel in mathematics. As a result, they are going to discern this stereotype and grasp it mentally, thus diminishing their efforts in learning mathematics and declining their performance in the exam. On the contrary, there is almost no difference in female and male performance if the stereotyping does not exist in the first place. This simple situation is a proof that the existence of stereotypes, rather than the difference in both genders capabilities, is the actual obstacle to high achievement in education among women (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn as cited in Andersen, 2003). The enormous significance of stereotype in gender discrimination is supported by Etzkowitz et al. (as cited in Klein, 2007) who reported that people do not take female graduates in sciences and mathematics department seriously as they are generalized to be incapable and incompetent than their male counterparts. In Malaysia, male students prefer to choose careers in the technical field, whereas female students tend to be in management and arts field (Sultana & Nor Erlina, 2012). Galliano (2003) hinted that the traditional gender role of females may be the main hindrance that promotes gender discrimination in education. In conformity with this perspective, women who carry professional duties will still be responsible for most of the domestic tasks at home. Consequently, many women do not put enough effort to pursue high-status careers during their education period, causing them to be discriminated.

6 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Besides that, the deeply rooted paternalism in a culture has resulted in gender discrimination. Paternalism is defined as taking all the decisions for the person who is under your authority by assuming their foolishness or inability to make their own decisions (Gray, 1999). As in Nigeria, paternalism significantly occurs in their ways of rearing and educating their children. Ozele (2007) pointed out, The gender roles and differentiations, perceptions of equality or inequality, acceptance or discrimination, dominance or submission, have their roots in the early socialization process within the family sub-structure, and the clan structure (p. 7). According to him, the girls were raised as primary caregivers to fulfill the societys expectation from women in Nigeria. Although the position of women was regarded as the pivotal strength in the society, it was without doubt, subordinate to men. Furthermore, the culture has set up a preference for male. Male children are more prioritized than female children, since a lineage of a family will traditionally continue from the males family. This preference has influenced discrimination against female children, to the extent that their basic needs such as education and health will be deemed as secondary if they have male siblings (Abara, 2012). This preference is also seen in Malaysia as reported by Sultana and Nor Erlina (2012) in their work, in which a respondent expressed that she will choose son over daughter if she must decide which children to be sent for further study.

7 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Methodology Participants This survey was conducted by using the quantitative method which is a questionnaire. The survey forms were distributed to 32 respondents. The location of the survey was at CFS IIUM, Petaling Jaya. 32 respondents were randomly picked up among the students, lecturers and staff of CFS IIIUM. They were confirmed to be from age 20 and above before they participated in this study Materials The material used for this survey was a questionnaire, created by revising a questionnaire form taken from Adhikari (2008) and combining it with the revised Likert-scale questions taken from Sultana and Nor Erlina (2012). The questionnaire consisted of 5 Likert-scale questions that require the respondents to agree, strongly agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the statements. After that, the respondents were required to answer 3 yes or no questions which represent their perceptions on gender discrimination in education. The next questions required the respondents to identify the major factor of discrimination against women in education. The final question was asked to identify the way to address gender discrimination in education. Overall, the questionnaire consisted of 14 questions. Procedures The raw data were collected then analyzed by using Microsoft Excel. The results were represented with charts and graphs.

8 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Results

Figure 1. The perceptions of the female respondents on gender discrimination in education As shown in Figure 1, the respondents were asked whether they agree that women are discriminated in education. Slightly more than half of the respondents (56%) answered that women are not discriminated in education. Next, the respondents were asked about the equity in access to education as men. The majority of the respondents believed that women get equal access to education as men, and only 31% of the respondents answered no. The respondents were also asked about their opinion, whether all women are able to complete their desired level of education. The number of respondents who agreed that all women are able to complete their desired level of education is slightly higher (53%) than those who

9 PERCEPTION ON GENDER disagreed. However, the difference between the numbers of respondents who answered yes and no is highly negligible, since the percentage of difference is only 6% and given that the number of respondents were limited to thirty-two people.

Figure 2. CFS IIUM female respondents perception on the major reasons women are discriminated in education From the pie chart in Figure 2 above, it is observed that the majority of the respondents viewed traditional gender role as the most determining factor of discrimination against women in education. Workload is observed as the second most chosen reason women are discriminated, followed by stereotyping, whereas cultural or religious factor shared the same percentage (9%) as paternalistic factor. Finally, the least viewed factors are lack of encouragement and other factors, each taking up 3% of the chart portion.

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Figure 3. CFS IIUM female respondents perception on the groups who usually discriminate women in education The pie chart in Figure 3 above depicts the perception of CFS IIUM female respondents on the groups who usually discriminate women. When asked, from whom are women discriminated the most in education, nearly half of the respondents chose husband as their answers. The government is the second most discriminatory group (6%) identified by the respondents, whereas the lowest percentage of the respondents (6%) chose friends as their answers.

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13% 25%

Government Family Women themselves Social organizations 9%

53%

Figure 4. CFS IIUM female respondents perception on who should be more responsible for improving womens educational status The Figure 4 indicates that the most of the respondents (53%) perceived that women themselves should be responsible for improving womens educational status. The government has the second highest percentage (25%) followed by social organizations (13%). In contrast, only 9% of the respondents chose family as the responsibly body in improving womens educational status.

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Figure 5. The family environment when CFS IIUM female respondents were studying The pie chart in Figure 6 shows the perception of CFS IIUM female respondents with regards to the family environment and treatment when they were studying. Most of the respondents (84%) felt that the family environment was equal to both gender. Whereas 9% of the respondents believed that their family was more favourable to males and only 6% felt that the treatment was favourable to females.

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Figure 6. The school or college environment when CFS IIUM female respondents were studying In the Figure 7 above, the percentage of respondents who felt that their school or college environment was favourable to males is almost the same as the percentage of respondents who thought that the environment was equal to both gender. The difference in percentage is only 3% and can be considered as insignificant. The smallest percentage goes to the number of respondents who regarded the environment of their school or college as favourable to females.

14 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Discussion Overall, this research has achieved its purpose, which was to study the perception of the CFS IIUM female population on gender discrimination in education, and to investigate the way to address gender discrimination in education. This study has also been able to answer the research questions which investigated on what are the factors that influence gender discrimination in education and how gender discrimination in education can be addressed. The first result in Figure 1 shows that more than half of the respondents did not believe that gender discrimination occur in education. Bradley (as cited in Andersen, 2003) has stated that there is high admittance of women in schools and colleges when education was finally introduced to both genders. The second result in Figure 1 shows that most of the women agreed that women get equal access in education as men. This may be largely caused by our Malaysian governments policy, which has opened equal access to education for both genders. So, there is not any important problem in accessing education for women in this era. However, the Figure 1 also displays a result that we cannot simply ignore. Nearly half of the female respondents agreed that women are not able to complete their desired level of education. We can make an assumption that there are other factors that force the women to stop from completing their desired level of education, which are traditional gender role and others. We can relate this to the results in Figure 2 which displays traditional gender role as the most chosen major reason for discrimination of women in educational aspect. This is consistent with the research by Galliano (2003) who implied that the traditional gender role of females may be the most determining factor that promotes gender discrimination in education. A typical Malaysian woman in this era will be a wife, have to take care of their children, do housework, and study at the same time. Many women who finally further their education in higher levels are

15 PERCEPTION ON GENDER aware that they cannot go on with those commitments, unless they choose to commit only one of them. As a result, a lot of them tend to drop out from their education and focus on their family. In Figure 3, the husband is seen to be the major group who discriminated women the most. This is partially true if we see it in the cultural perspective of Malaysia. Moreover, the husband will be the first authority in a womans life when she gets married. A husband who decides against her wifes education may be influenced by paternalism, since a husband might assume that he is the decision-maker of the family and the people under him are not capable of making the best decision (Gray, 1999). From the survey, we noticed that there is not any significant differential treatment in male and female children. This can be contributed to the background of the respondents, who mostly came from urban areas where the majority of the people are usually more open-minded and have high awareness about education. However, nearly half of the population felt that their school or college environment was more favourable to male students. We can assume that there was an imbalance in distribution of male and female students in a class. Some of the classes may have more males especially in engineering classes, where females are a minority, and some classes might have more female students. In Figure 4, the way to address gender discrimination can be implied from the respondents perception on who should be responsible to improve womens educational status. From the survey, it is known that the respondents viewed that women themselves should be more responsible. This view is consistent with an article from UNICEFs website. Innately, it is known that women are expected to be submissive, softer, and gentler than the men. As a result, when

16 PERCEPTION ON GENDER they see someone who is more dominant than them, they will feel intimidated and this will repress their potential (United Nations Childrens Fund [UNICEF], 2007). If the traditional gender role is to be the major reason women are discriminated in education, the women need to empower themselves and break their traditional gender role to overcome this discrimination. As for the implication, further research should be done on the methods to educate and motivate women to be more courageous in their educational pursuit. In addition, the government and educational authorities must ensure that the women can get a holistic and fair experience in education as men. This survey was only done on thirty-two females in CFS IIUM, which was less than 3% of the overall female population. Besides, nearly all of the respondents were Muslims and Malays. Hence, the impression from the results may be inaccurate to be used to generalize to the whole population in the institution itself, and therefore not suggested to be used to generalize the whole population of Malaysia. Thus, I recommend that this research to be replicated and include other ethnic groups and respondents from different beliefs. The sample should be bigger to provide more accuracy and reliability to the results. The area of research should also be varied and not focused on merely urban areas. Remote and rural areas should also be taken into consideration when doing the research. In conclusion, more research should be done to reveal more discoveries about discrimination in education against women in order to help the more oppressed gender and aid the women who are unable to voice out their educational aspirations.

17 PERCEPTION ON GENDER References Abara, C. J. (2012). Inequality and discrimination in Nigeria tradition and religion as negative factors affecting gender (Power Point Slides). Retrieved from http://www.fihrm.org/conference/ Adhikari, L. (2008). Women's perception on gender discrimination in education (a study of women aged 20 and above currently residing in Kathmandu Valley). (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Tribhuvan University). Andersen, M. L. (2003). Thinking about women: Sociological perspectives on sex and gender (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Binelli, C. (2003), Educational gender gap, inequality and growth: A gender sensitive analysis. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University College London).

Galliano, G. M. (2003). Gender: Crossing boundaries. Stamford: Wadsworth. Mullins, J. (2013). Gender discrimination: Why is it still so bad and what can you do about it? Retrieved from http://childreninneed.com/magazine/gender.html Ozele, M. A. (2007). Cultural paternalism and the challenges of educating Nigerian women. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/cpp/uk/declarations/osloabs.html Suber, P. (1999). Paternalism. Retrieved from http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/paternal.htm

18 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Sultana, A. M. & Nor Erlina (2012). Discrimination against women in the developing countries: A comparative study. International Journal of Science and Humanity, 2(3) 256-259. Retrieved from www.ijssh.org/show-30-350-1.html United Nations Childrens Fund. (2007, March). Empowering girls with information. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/malaysia/reallives_6193.html

19 PERCEPTION ON GENDER Appendices

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A Survey on the Perception of CFS IIUM Female Population on Gender Discrimination in Education Wan Nur Amni binti Wan Azmi 114994 Centre of Foundation Studies, Petaling Jaya International Islamic University of Malaysia

CONTACT NUMBER: 013-9380597

English for Academic Writing LE 4000 Section 191 Tutor: Miss Cathrine Boudville

DRAFT

30th April 2013