Women’s Rights
How far have women really come since 1848 for
women’s rights? Are there certain things that still need to be focused on
regarding gender equality? This paper will discuss how women have been fighting
to change women’s rights and what still needs to be changed as far as making
sure there is equality between sexes. Also this essay will be talking about
gender affects many aspects of people daily lives and if these certain things
are helping women move forward with equality or if they are holding them back. There
are a lot of equalities between men and women but there are still places in
society that need to be changed for the better.
The first thing that will be talked
about is basic feminine theory and the different type of feminist there are to
help give a understanding as to who is making changes for the greater good of
women’s rights. According to Society: the
Basics, written by John J. Macionis “feminism is support of social equality
for women and men, in opposition to patriarchy and sexism.” What that means is
that feminist really doesn’t want one sex to be more highly valued then the
other. The feminist wants equality for both sexes. (Macionis,
2009,2011,2013)
Macionis says that feminist believe in 5 basic principles: to take action to
increase equality, to expand human choice, to eliminate gender stratification,
to end sexual violence and to promote sexual freedom. (Macionis, 2009,2011,2013) These five ideas are
not only to help women gain equality it is for both sexes to be more equal. The
ideas that are listed above do not hurt women’s rights they are trying to
promote them to help women gain equality also.
To say that all feminist want the
same thing is true in the most part but depending on the type it would show you
how far they want the equality of men and women to go. Macionis describes three
types of feminism in his book. They are liberal feminism, socialist feminism
and radical feminism. (Macionis, 2009,2011,2013) He describes the
liberal feminist as wanting to follow basic society organization but they want
to expand on women’s rights and opportunities. He describes the socialist
feminist as wanting to change society through a social revolution ending all
“domestic slavery.” Last he describes the radical feminist who wants to end the
family system all together by eliminating gender. (Macionis, 2009,2011,2013) The three different
types of feminism described all want change and more equality they just believe
in different way of going about to achieve it.
Women’s rights all started with
feminist looking for change. Next will be described some of the key events that
have help women’s rights today. The Post and Courier wrote an article called “The women's
rights movement: A timeline of significant events” in the article are some key years that have been for
women’s rights. In the year 1848 five women made history by organizing a two
day convention held in Seneca Falls, NY. (Courier, 2012) By organizing the event to talk about
women’s rights they started the women’s rights movement. A few years later in
1869 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (two of the women involved in
the Seneca Falls convention) established the National Women’s Suffrage
Association. (Courier, 2012) In 1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns
started trying to get women the right to vote but the 19th amendment
wasn’t passed until 1920 which made it legal for women to vote. (Courier, 2012) A little bit latter in 1963 congress
started to pass a few acts for women in the work place. In 1963 congress passed
the Equal Pay Act which requires equal pay regardless of sex, race or national
origin. (Courier, 2012) In 1964 congress
passed another act, the Civil Rights Act which makes employee discrimination
illegal. (Courier, 2012) A few years later congress passed
another act in 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which prevents discrimination
against pregnant women in the workplace. (Courier, 2012) It wasn’t until 1993
that the Family and Medical Leave Act were passed by congress which gives women
time off of work after they give birth. (Courier, 2012) In 1994 is when the
Violence against Women Act was passed by congress. (Courier,
2012)
The Violence against Women Act provides funds for victims of rape and domestic
violence. It was the most progressive act in nearly two decades. The most
recent event was in 2009 when President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair
Pay Restoration Act which allows someone to file a complaint with the
government if they believe their pay is not equal with someone that is doing
the same thing. (Courier, 2012) All of these events have moved equality
forward for women. It is important to know that there are still things that can
be changed to help create more equality between sexes.
Continuing on will are a few
different ways feminist theories looking at sexuality and gender and if these
help or hurt women’s rights. Macionis in his book Society: the Basics describes how the feminist theory views
sexuality. The feminist theory says that sexuality is a part of social
inequality. (Macionis, 2009,2011,2013) How that relates to
women’s rights is that sexuality is going to put holds on how people will
perceive you based on your sexuality. That is going to hurt women’s right
because if people are brought up to believe that one sex is greater than the
other they might pass that same belief on to their child and so. Next will be
how feminist theory views deviance and gender. Macionis says “Research confirms
an important truth: Whether people define a situation as deviant-and, if they
do, who in the situation is defined as deviant-depends on the sex of both the
audience and the actors.” (Macionis, 2009,2011,2013) That relates to
women’s rights because it tells that certain things will be judged based on
your sex by the people that are judging you if you committed a crime. That
doesn’t help women’s right because it does mean that there are still
inequalities in the justice system.
Moving on to how gender roles have
affected women’s rights in either a positive or negative way. Macionis says “Gender
roles (also known as sex roles) are attitudes and activities that a society
links to each sex.” (Macionis, 2009,2011,2013) The types of areas
that gender roles affect are family, schooling, media and the workplace. From
when we are born there are all ready set standards that girls and boys are
suppose to follow. As we get older we are still meant to follow these standards
that even lead over into adult hood. These gender roles have been affecting
women’s rights because if we are raised to believe that one sex is greater than
the other then it will be hard to change the inequality between the two sexes.
Therefore one of the last things
that affect women’s rights is all the people that are still opposed to the fact
that there should be equality between sexes. T. D. Rozairo and H. Zheng wrote a
article called “11 Myths and Facts about
Feminism.” One
of the things that they talk about in their article is “There are
still many inequalities in society’s perception of the roles of men and women.
We want to build a world in which no person, because of their gender, must
curtail their hopes and dreams.” (T. De Rozario, 2010) They say that
because there are still people how think that women should stay home and men
should go to work. That hurts feminism and women’s rights because women should
be able to go out and achieve their goals just as must as men.
In conclusion to what is helping women’s
rights move forward and what is keep women’s rights on the back burner is society. It is people
still thinking that women should be at home instead of equally achieving in the
workforce. But with change and feminist pushing forward with what they believe
there can eventually be equality between sexes. It may take a while before
things are completely equal but with enough work it will happen.
Bibliography
Courier, T. P. (2012, March 9). The women's rights
movement: A timeline of significant events. Retrieved from The Post and
Courier: http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20090306/PC1208/303069957
Macionis, J. J. (2009,2011,2013). Society: The
Basics. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc.
T. De Rozario, Z. H. (2010, Febuary 26). 11 Myths
and Facts about Feminism. Retrieved from Association of Women for Action
and Research: http://www.aware.org.sg/2010/02/myths/
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