Analysis Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From A Birmingham Jail

There are a wide array of issues that exist and continue to negatively impact individuals around the world. Out of these issues, the lack of women’s rights is one of the most significant topics that continues to affect our society and effectively relates to the ideas presented in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Women’s rights are rights that women and girls are entitled to such as, the right to vote, the right to live free from violence, and so on. However, it is evident that women are not able to enjoy these rights to their full extent as many of these rights are manipulated and taken away from them. They are not treated equally and are often taken advantage of due to the widespread acceptance of the practice
discusses the significance of civil disobedience and obtaining justice for injustice. This is what women continue to strive for in today’s society, as they have become disadvantaged and negatively affected by gender inequality. Their goal is to create awareness in society that women are equal to that of men through peaceful acts of civil disobedience, such as nonviolent protests and petitions. King states, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored” (2). This quote discusses how acts of civil disobedience are highly effective and are what allows progressive, beneficial change to occur. Without these acts, tension would not occur in society and individuals would not obtain the development they seek; moreover, the justice women desire to achieve may take longer than necessary and lead to an increase in disputes. This can be conveyed in King’s letter as, “ justice too long delayed is justice denied” (2). For these reasons, women simply desire to obtain gender equality and will not stop until they achieve their
In today’s society, women continue to desire to be seen as equal to that of men, yet the ideology of individuals has not changed, which leads to inequality and unjustifiable treatment towards women. Until the twenty-first century, women were not able to express their opinions and portray this prominent issue passionately, as there has been a rapid increase in movements for progressive change. The reason for this is that women have finally felt safe and free to expose the nature of society and its negative impact on the rights of women. King states that, “Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicine of air and light, injustice must be exposed with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured” (4). This quote displays how injustice must be exposed in order for it to resolve and lead to a more enhanced society. This can be seen in a statistic by the International Labour Organization in that equality in pay has improved in the United States since 1979, when women earned about 62 percent as much as men; however, in 2010, American women, on average, earned 81 percent of what their male counterparts earned.