Gender discrimination is when someone grants or denies rights or privileges to people because of their gender. We live in the 21^st century and, while we see progress in many fields (science, technologies …), mentalities don’t really progress. In fact, all over the world, we are used to observing gender discrimination: women are still disrespected, and, sometimes, they are considered like objects which always have to do what men want them to do. And, I think that the media don’t really allow the mentalities to change. In fact, in ads, it’s still a woman who washes the dishes, do the hovering or take care of the child. To my mind, this is very unfair. That’s why, I think that vigorous actions should be taken.

In France, to my mind, gender discrimination is considered inappropriate. But we can see gender discrimination in some fields.

- Employment: Women are generally less paid than men for the same job. Moreover, most of the time, women can’t reach high profile jobs. In fact, a lot of men think that they are not intelligent enough and that they don’t have what it takes to do these jobs.

- Housework: In the majority of families, boys and girls are expected to do equal amounts of housework. But, in some of them, girls are expected to do more housework than boys. Moreover, in the media we never see men doing the housework. In ads, it’s always a woman who does it.

- Respect: The majority of girls think that men are treated more respectfully than women in society at large, but the majority of boys think that both are respected equally. Surprising! Don’t’ you think?

- Politics: In France, we never had a woman as a president. Moreover, at the National Assembly, there are fewer women than men.

- High beauty standards: many people think that high beauty standards are applied to girls only.

However, in school there isn’t gender discrimination: boys and girls are appreciated at the same level by teachers. Moreover, the students and their parents consider that education is important for boys and girls equally. Finally, the majority of students think that their parents expect them to have good grades to find a good job regardless of their gender.

If, nowadays, gender discrimination is considered inappropriate in France, it has not always been so. While the universal suffrage was established since 1848, women had to wait until 1945 to be able to vote. To get this right, women had organized feminist movements. In fact, feminist movements are an effective weapon for women to get more and more rights. For example, thanks to them, women can have an abortion since 1975. Moreover, in 2002, in France the paternity leave was created. It’s a real progress, because it shows that child’s education does not concern only women, but that men too have an important role to play in this field. Finally, today, a lot of feminists use social networks to convey their ideas and try to change mentalities.