Gender Inequality In The Me Too Movement

Gender Inequality

In 1960, a woman made sixty cents for every man’s dollar. In 2010, that woman makes but twenty cents more than she would have fifty years ago for doing the same exact job a man does (“Me Too Movement has Shaken the Workplace to its Core”). The history of gender equality, starting mainly in the 1840’s, was vast. Suffrage gave women the right to vote, potentially the most influential event in terms of gender equality in history; following that, the Women’s Liberation Movement swept the nation with its radical ideas in the 1960’s and 70’s, introducing the more modern sense of the word feminism (Auerbach 1705); In 1972, Title IX was signed to ensure that a female is not to be prohibited from any school activities and will
The Radium Girls were a group of five women out of 70 others poisoned by radium in the factory in which they would paint watches, clocks, compasses, and other military utilities with glow-in-the-dark radium paint daily. The demand for this work became higher as the United States entered into World War I, and women considered themselves lucky to have these jobs because the pay was eighteen dollars a week instead of the usual five. The job was very selective, only hiring women with precise painting skills. The workers were told radium was completely safe, and it was widely believed it could cure diseases; however, scientists were always careful to wear masks and gloves when handling the radium. Because they were told it was safe, women would paint their nails and teeth In early 1920’s, dial painters started experiencing the damage the radium did to their bodies, beginning to get sick with strange symptoms such as teeth problems, disintegrating jawbones, anemia, and joint pain. Dr. Theodore Bloom coined the term “radium jaw” after being the first person to correlate their radium exposure with their illnesses. When sued, U.S. Radium denied charges and tried to illegally disprove health conditions while saying the women instead had syphilis. The Radium Girls ended up settling after their trial was pushed back several times. All of the women subsequently died all before the age of 52, most before 40. But the tragedy of the harrowing mistreatment of these women was not nearly the last case of atrocious inequality. In 2017, TIME Magazine named Taylor Swift Person of the Year, among the other Silence Breakers named in the articles. After a professional interview with a radio station, Swift took a picture with DJ David Mueller