Hunger and Gender
In both developing and advanced countries, both mothers and fathers will sometimes go without eating so their children can avoid hunger. But women seem to be more likely to make this sacrifice than men. Studies by World Bank have consistently found that about 60% of those experiencing hunger are female. The explanation for this disproportionate suffering appears to be that compared to men, women will more often forgo meals in order to feed their children. In older sources this was sometimes said to be a phenomena unique to developing countries, due to greater sexual inequality. More recent findings have suggested that mothers will also often miss meals even in advanced economies. For example, a 2012 study undertook by Netmums in the UK found that one in five mothers would sometimes miss out on food so as to be able to save their children from going hungry.
Read more about this topic: Hunger
Famous quotes containing the words hunger and, hunger and/or gender:
“We do not weary of eating and sleeping every day, for hunger and sleepiness recur. Without that we should weary of them. So, without the hunger for spiritual things, we weary of them. Hunger after righteousness—the eighth beatitude.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“poverty is obsolete and hunger is abolished—”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)