This is written in an academic essay format and it must be of length between 2,600 to 2,800 words. You must follow Bradford-Harvard referencing style. Any material taken from other sources must be fully and properly acknowledged.
What would make a city truly inclusive? Examine the key policy challenges taking the case of EITHER (a) gender OR (b) age (elderly people) OR (c) racial minority groups.
I would prefer to go with gender as the case to examine.
Gender inclusivity is a critical factor in modern organizations. Cities, countries, local authorities, and different agencies come up with inclusive strategies to promote equality. However, the policy challenges to achieving inclusivity remain a threat to gender equality at organizational levels. Gender-inclusive organizations consider women and minorities as subsidiary people not befitting of inclusion. They do not consider the needs of different gender, people with disabilities and other stems out inequality. The urban environment determines the extent to which inclusivity organizes lives and communities. The limited representation of women in organizational decision-making promotes inequality, hence extending the gender gaps through inclusivity.
Gender Inclusivity in Modern Business Environment
The concept of gender inclusivity revolves around attention to gender participation in social activities, decision-making, and opportunities. Research outlines t the focus of equality and the main principle of gender inclusion (Warren et al., 2019). Empowerment of women and active participation in economic, social, political, and cultural life segments is a primary element that stakeholders need to promote. Panicker, Agrawal, and Khandelwal (2018) believe that the road to an inclusive workplace depends on organizational citizenship behavior. The relationship between corporate culture and the employees’ attitudes determines whether the organization will enforce gender-inclusive practices. Many organizations have shown the commitment to increase their inclusiveness and diversity (Chang et al., 2020). Leaders play a le significant role in promoting efforts for diversity in their workplace.
Gender inclusion transcends issues of equality and diversity. The concept typifies the need for all people to access opportunities, resources, services, and establishment. The stereotype that defines social expectations and roles should not form the benchmark of limiting the policies (Warren et al., 2019). Governments, workplaces, and organizations have made strides in narrowing the gender gap. Statistics show that the existing challenges affect the effort to promote gender inclusion through demonstrative action. The need for gender equality and inclusion is imperative. Most sections of society are striving for a more inclusive approach. Gender inclusion prevents discrimination and inequality against women. It forms the base for social-economic prosperity. For this reason, leadership that embraces inclusivity creates an inclusive climate, therefore, promoting dimensions of gender, diversity, and category to belong. As Kaur and Arora (2020) contend, acknowledging gender diversity and inclusion is critical to growing the organization. For women to fully exercise their human rights, there is a need to shape inclusive urban policies. In the workplace, gender inclusion goes beyond diversity.
Gender inclusivity is key to sustainable development. Societies that foster gender inclusion have recorded value chains where men and women participate in inequality in different societies’ segments. The contributions that gender inclusivity has on any society stem from consolidating efforts. All these allow the societal environment to inspire and inform mechanisms of equality and inclusivity. According to Kaur and Arora (2020), 77 percent of organizations aspire to attain gender inclusivity, with only 12 percent having achieved diversity goals with inclusion. Promoting gender inclusion in organizations calls for a collaborative framework that appreciates gender differences. Warren et al. (2019) outline the increasing recognition for gender inclusivity in organizations. All these points to the trends where economies and societies’ structures are changing to embrace gender equality. However, there is still a wide range of inequalities that generally affect women than men. The scope of gender inclusivity gender challenges that society’s face in fostering gender inclusion. At market and society levels, embracing gender inclusivity remains a challenge.
Norms and values in most societies are far from acknowledging gender neutrality. Warren et al. (2019) indicate that women’s status, in general, is not equal to that of their male counterparts. In most organizations, different mechanisms inform the gender inclusion process. However, there are not tangible metrics to measure inclusion. For this reason, most organizations have implemented policies that threaten the spirit of gender inclusion. Although most workplace policies have focused on tracking pay gender gaps and enforcing anti-harassments policies, the challenges of a culture of gender inclusion remain challenging. Leaders, policymakers, and different stakeholders create an environment where women express gender identities in the context of sexual orientation (Rice, Young, and Sheridan 2020).In most cases, gender inclusion has adopted sexual orientation protection policies. The focus is to prevent gender minorities from discrimination and other forms of abuse.
Emerging trends in democratizing gender issues focus on gender equality. However, policy makers’ initiative systems threaten the policy gains of gender equality (Krizsan and Roggeband, 2018, p.91). Societies, organizations, and institutions have made systematic efforts to represent gender interest. However, new forms of feminist engagement raise the challenges of embracing an all-inclusive society. The United Nations Global Compact initiative encourages businesses worldwide to adopt socially responsible and sustainable policies for gender inclusivity (Gülsoy and Ustabaş, 2019, p.2). The principle is to embrace a gender equality focuses management approach that limits all forms of gender discrimination regarding occupation and employment. Therefore, businesses should assume the responsibility for promoting gender equality to allow women and gender minority and other disadvantaged groups the opportunity to take part in the organization’s affairs. In ethnopolitical environments, gender ideologies determine women’s success (Asal, Avdan, and Shuaibi, 2020, p.2). The effects of these gender ideologies on the organizational culture influence mechanism of achieving equality. The broader scope of gender ideologies helps advocate for inclusivity to allow organizations to adopt criteria for including women in their decision-making processes.
Benefits of Gender Inclusion
The growing trends in the world today demand an inclusive society. Differences in human life are critical for innovation and creativity. Gender characterizes the element of diversity that organizations should consider in developing their human resource policies. As Kaur and Arora (2020) indicate, inclusion is instrumental in putting the concept and practice of diversity into action. Societies need to create an environment of respect, involvement, and connection to achieve creativity, exchange ideas, and the benefits that come with difference in social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Although isolated cases affect inclusion policies, experimenting with more inclusive approaches is instrumental for the organization’s performance and success (Chang et al., 2020). Harnessing gender diversity and including creates business values. Galvanizing inclusion is a critical factor that allows workplaces to synergize gender differences and bring out collaboration and meaning. Inclusion determines the level to which teamwork and team spirit values portends the direction of the organization and its employees.
Gender inclusion is good for business. Research indicates that operating gender inclusion is critical to making internal policies and practices that have a lasting impact on the business’s sales (Chang et al., 2020). Organizations that have implemented gender inclusion had the opportunity to tap into new markets bringing into focus a culture that facilitates a departure from unconscious bias. For this reason, Gülsoy and Ustabaş (2019) indicate that fostering gender equality is an imperative policy framework that promotes sustainability. Therefore, the importance of gender inclusion strategies resonates with the impetus that policy frameworks have on business performance. Female managers, executives, and employees can tap into the gender consumer markets and build competitive brands. A case in point is where businesses that understand the targets women consumers need to stand a more significant change in tapping into the market when they have gender-inclusive policies. A company with elaborate inclusive policies has gender-equal regulations and attracts a large pool of qualified women and other minorities (Gülsoy and Ustabaş 2019). Thus, to attract the best talent, organizations need to appeal to a more diverse labor pool. As the markets are becoming more inclusive, organizations must hire various human resources to handle customers’ diversified needs.
Key Policy Challenges in Gender Inclusivity
Policy backsliding is a crucial challenge to achieving inclusivity. Aspects of policy backsliding emanate from a political position. Changes in political and social disclosures have remained silent on gender equality creating a scenario where stakeholders oppose policy positions (Krizsan and Roggeband, 2018 93). The high-level political actors often question the legitimacy of gender equality. Backsliding increases hostility around the policy process and negatively influences the perception and implementation of gender inclusion policies. According to Panicker, Agrawal, and Khandelwal (2018, 127), the persistent gender diversity gaps at the workplace paint a global policy status of gender inclusion. Irrespective of the growing relevance of gender equality and inclusion, companies still have cases of huge gender gaps. No country has achieved the goal of gender equality. Only 29 percent of women hold senior management roles. Such statistics indicate a clear status of policy implementation of diversity and inclusion across the world.
Gender inclusion policies associate with the anti-sexual harassment agenda. The limited view of gender issues affects the general appreciation of policy implementation of gender-related principles. Elias (2019) indicates that the reduced scope of gender policies on sexual disclosure expands policy reviews’ opposition. As a result, stakeholders scale down on maximizing human capital for economic growth. Besides, the world’s poorest countries exhibit gender haps because of the limited scope of gender policies. Most of the existing policies lack structures that allow for implementing holistic practices of gender inclusion.
In most cases, the gender gaps restrict women and girls’ ability to fulfill their potential role as productive people in society. Multiple factors affect women and the policy orientation to participate fully as entrepreneurs, employers, employees, and business leaders. The basis of women running just a third of the economic and social resources manifests a policy challenge that should change (Krizsan and Roggeband, 2018). Therefore, women lack access to markets, peer-to-peer networks, information, and technology. As a result, most women and girls spend a considerable amount of their time on caregiver duties and household chores.
Policy frameworks in gender equality do not accelerate global commitments for gender inclusion. Krizsan and Roggeband (2018) reiterate that there is no sense of urgency in the policy initiative that allows companies to adopt international frameworks for inclusion and sustainability. The res outcome of lack of standardized actions has extended gender inequalities. As a result, women and girls suffer inequalities in terms of income and wealth, cascading to social inequalities in areas of social benefits, health, and education. Lack of global measures to protect gender identity reinforces the deprivation and relative disadvantage of existing policies (Warren et al., 2019). For instance, women suffer a direct economic loss due to weak inclusion policies. The global distribution of resource ownership portrays how vulnerable systems are to implementing gender inclusion. Therefore, the sign of erosion in commitment to implementing gender-based inclusion is worrisome.
Cultural orientation increases gender inequality with a focus on gender roles. Cultural feminism dilutes policy efforts to inclusion, emphasizing women’s distinctive character and propagating the need for women to affirm their cultures (Lashitew and van Tulder, 2017). The exclusion perspective tries to limit women from embracing their educational and employment rights. The complexity of social identities shows how women have accepted their status and dilute efforts to enforce the policy instruments for gender inclusion. According to Asal, Avdan, and Shuaibi (2020), culture is a challenge to gender participation in different social levels. From this perspective, gender inequality becomes an outcome of a culture that fails to address the inadequate social structures.
The challenge of gender roles leads to the exclusion of women in the division of labor. Rice, Young, and Sheridan (2020) believe that the aspect of the division of labor, which the society has developed, is the basis of policy weakness. The relationship between gender is a construct of gender roles that promotes the belief that females must take up all productive labor related to giving birth and rearing children and cooking, cleaning, and other chores required in supporting human life. The logic is a cultural input that disallows females to engage entirely in the economic sphere (Fesenko, Shakhov, and Fesenko, 2017). Genders are different both in their social roles as well as in their very natures. Nature shaped the woman for the role that she should play, and the same applies to men. Men and women are born with differing abilities that place them in gender-specific roles. The policy that exists has made it a discretionary decision for organizations. Thus, some roles that women should play that men cannot and vice versa. Values, norms, and psychological traits are by-products of biological tendencies deeply buried in the evolutionary past.
The historical materialist perspective is a challenge to gender inequality. According to Hill et al. (2017), the historical and material status of people’s lives in society extends gender inequality. From this perspective, the gendered and sexist division of labor of the historical eras is based on the period’s economic status. The statuses emerge through patriarchal and capitalist relationships (Rice, Young, and Sheridan, 2020). As a result, this perspective seems to specify how class and gender operate in unison in creating different kinds of oppression and privileges for men and women at every level in society. For instance, other policies observe that the women’s class status is Radical feminists that gender inequality is the genesis of every other form of inequality and oppression women face in society. From this perspective, there is a need to identify the cause of the problems that women face society into change
Fostering Gender Inclusion
The foundation of achieving gender inclusion is to address all areas of inequality. Labor laws and other social efforts need to emphasize ending the cultural and economic bias that entrenches gender inequality. Policy instruments need to facilitate a paradigm shift allowing women equal opportunity to access economic and social resources. To achieve this, all political actors should outline a mechanism that rejects women’s economic dependence and dominance over men in society. In capitalism, structures subject women to men’s domination because of the imbalance of wealth and resources. Therefore, financial dependence becomes the main factor behind men’s superiority to women (Fesenko, Shakhov, and Fesenko, 2017). Women cannot attain a high status in society without addressing all aspects of inclusion.
The world community should declare its commitment to promoting gender equality for purposes of development. The sustainable development goals offer a guiding principle to allowing political leaders to develop policies that encourage unbiased gender inclusion. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), number three of promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, portrays weakness where societies cannot emphasize the needs of gender inclusivity (Asal, Avdan, and Shuaibi, 2020). Overcoming these loopholes requires states, institutions, and agencies to address gender disparities among developing nations’ significant challenges. The trend of inequality is substantial in any debate regarding development practice.
Policies should outlaw gender-based discrimination in levels of society. The structure of gender inclusion depends on the social environment. In many human organizations, women and girls are treated unequally from boys and men. It is difficult for women and girls to come out of such circumstances since they are the victims of perverse discrimination and prejudice, owing to their gender. Hill et al. (2017) claim that the stability, development, and sustainability of any nation’s socioeconomic prosperity in the modern-day world is dependent on men and women enjoying equal rights. The social, cultural, economic, and political disparities that oppress women, particularly in developing nations, require a policy approach to readdress it. With social inclusion, men and women will enjoy equal rights, leading the transformation of development processes. Gender equality is still inaccessible for many women, particularly those in developing nations.
The logical path towards gender inclusivity is to encourage social integration of the people at all societal levels. Inclusivity believes in assimilation syncretism will play a role in advancing new cultures while forsaking backward culture. Rice, Young, and Sheridan (2020) indicate that some of the senior managers tend to prevent gender inclusion in the workplace by questioning the restructuring and composition of the executive committee, the stakeholders, and the employees. The policy issues of global diversity and inclusion should respond to the workforce’s composition’s adverse reactions. Inclusivity supports the premise that globalization of the world informs the primary trend while increasing reality into the future and not its division into political and economic entities. Within this spectrum, companies should take correct measures towards diversity and inclusion in all departments.
Conclusion
Gender inclusion is a critical element in the growth and development of organizations and societies. As it is evident from the discussion, inclusivity is the most effective approach to addressing issues of gender inequality. Most researchers agree to the point that gender equality has become a priority in development practice. Several factors increase the importance of gender inequality debates and demand for an individual goal of gender equality in development practice. The critical policy challenges originate from realizing that gender inequality is amongst the most persistent form of inequality in many nations. Most inclusion policies are characteristically structural, which implies that societies cannot achieve holistic goals in development practice without gender inclusion. It is essential to address gender inequality to attain the set developmental goals in different parts of the world.
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