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Gender Equality (Women's Rights)

March 29, 2016
By TerraJ BRONZE, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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TerraJ BRONZE, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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I believe that seeing women as an equal to men and why they should have equal job opportunities is a necessity in the United States that should be addressed immediately, and by working together we, as a society, can fix this problem by treating everybody with the respect they deserve.

   

Some counterpoints that someone could say are that women already have the rights that everybody is granted, which would be human rights. And in a perfect world, that would be true. However, we do not live in that perfect world. If you look at the society we live in, it’s very clear to see that not all women actually have “human rights”.

   

Currently, in the US, there is a lack of respect for women and that greatly affects the everyday life for a woman. For example, on average, women get paid much less even for doing the same job. “Women earned 76.5 cents for every dollar that men did last year, moving no closer to narrowing a gender pay gap that has barely budged in almost a decade.” (The Wall Street Journal) The wages in male and female jobs have gone up drastically since the 1960s, but male wages are still about 10,000 dollars apart. And as you can tell, there is still a lot of work to do.

   

We live in a society that is at times deeply patriarchal, and sometimes this can be a problem. For example, if you look at politicians, almost all of them are male. Infact only 20% of politicians who are in a upper house or senate position are women. Which indicates that the government of our country is mostly patriarchal. This can, and does lead to many negative outcomes.
   

For example, the most obvious outcomes is that women have less representation in politics. Another is that it sends the message that women shouldn’t be in positions of power and that they don’t have an opinion, which is not true.

   

We can all help the cause of making women's rights the same as human rights by taking part in petitions or protests. If you are in any sort of position where you have power, for example the CEO of a company, you can make the wages the same for men and women. But you can also make a big difference even if you are not. You could participate in rallies or protest against unequal wages. Whoever you are, you could make a big difference in sculpting our future and turning it into the world we want it to be.

© Karen S., Norwalk, CT

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This article has 1 comment.

Chin-Chin BRONZE said...
on Apr. 1 2016 at 1:47 pm
Chin-Chin BRONZE, Why Do You Wanna Know?, Other
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Mate, you know that the '75.5 cent' fact isn't true, right? I mean several economists have proven that statistic wrong. Here, let me explain. First of all the study that you got this statistic from say that they only counted full time workers, however, what can be seen as 'full time' varies from job to job. Also there are statistics that say that men are more willing to work more time a week, in fact, there are statistics that say men work 40 hours a week while women usually (keyword is usual, there are a few women who work ALOT, one of them being my own mother) work 30-35 hours a week. If your article that you pulled this fact from had taken this fact in account then the pay gap would have lessened. Also there is the simple fact that women and men tend to choose different paths of education in college with women leaning more towards artistic and care centered jobs while men choose jobs that focus on mathematics and science (if you say that the reason why women don't pick other paths of education in college because they are discouraged then how do you explain the overwhelming amount of women who are veterinarians). Men are also more likely to ask their bosses for a raise as well which also lends to them making more money, to go along with that it is highly evident that men choose to take on more risky jobs be it as a warehouse worker, a construction worker, or even a stock broker. In order to compensate for the amount of danger these employees are in they are paid more. Therefore, if you take in ALL of these factors into account I think that most people will see that there is a rational reason as to why women don't earn as much money as men other than there being some secret organization of white cis gendered male identifying individuals plotting to oppress women for the rest of time (MUAHAHAHA). Also if women want more equality with men in terms of work and opportunity then why don't I hear more women shouting and protesting to be more represented in 'dirty' occupations such as sanitation? Or why don't I hear more women wanting to be able to join combat units in the military (we have all seen what has happened with the first combat engineer)? Seems like people shouting for things such as 'equal pay' only want to have all the the benefits and rewards without putting in the work.