(Gender inequality may play into the poverty of independent individuals -- namely females -- but that is an argument separate from this one.) The presence of gender inequality in today's society not only affects the income levels of families everywhere, it also deters the social progress that has been made possible by the feminist movement all together.
Gender inequality has had an obvious effect on the social development of our nation in recent years. Now, Annan does not speak of social development directly in his statement, but I will interpret it as so, as that seems to make the most amount of sense. Gender inequality is not always synonymous with the work-world. There is an imbalance apparent within our society's expectations of a female vs. those of a male that is the direct result of inequality among genders. Just take Virginia Woolf's description of such a situation that exposes these expectations when she says, "But then [after picking up a book] her parents came in and and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers. "(845) This statement by Woolf speaks volumes on the pre-conditioned social expectation that men will be the providers and women will be the caretakers, which I would contend is a notion that is still around today. And such a notion only has a negative effect on social development when the idea is widely-accepted by one party (the men) and strongly-rejected by the other (the women). Woolf's writings are somewhat dated and the expectations have changed with the progress that has been made, but the pressure felt by women to be all-encompassing super-women still remains. Ultimately causing a state of social development and relation that can only be improved through the abolishment of gender inequality. Just take John Stuart Mill's reasoning behind such an abolishment when he states that the most obvious advantage to be gained by the riddance of inequality would be, "the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice "(820).