The Role Of Gender Equality In The United States

In 1963, the thought of gender equality was looked down upon. Most Americans didn’t think it was possible or even desirable. Women were all looked at as housewives—stay at home wives who cooked, cleaned, and took care of children while their husbands worked and provided for the family. They were not allowed to make a living for themselves. They were kept from from pursuing jobs, careers, and even making simple decisions in their own home. Society believed that everything should have been done by the “man of the house.” In 1979, the U.N. passed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which requires all signed to promote gender equality in law and practice. But the U.S. was one of many countries who never
signed this. Members of Congress have charged against this and when President George W. Bush tried to reintroduce this in the late 2000’s, still, nothing was done about it. The U.S. is considered “behind” when it comes to gender equality. It is one of 188 countries that doesn’t offer paid maternity leave to women. Rather, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 offers 12 weeks of unpaid leave, which many women cannot afford. Views on gender equality have changed so much in this country since the women’s liberation movement in 1970. In 1977, two-thirds of women agreed that a women’s place was in the home, just taking care of their families. But by 1994, when men’s wages were lowered and women had to start working to support their families, that two-thirds no longer agreed with the stereotype they were given. Women have fought for decades to take their place in the work place alongside men, and to this day, that fight still isn’t over. According to the most recent statistic from the U.S. Census, women earn 77% of what men earn for the same amount of work. They are also beat by men when it comes to major promotions, due to the lack of women in leadership roles when it comes to major companies. Women with children are also sometimes penalized at work for taking time off. In 2008, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported that one in every three women is likely “to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.” In both the developed and developing world, violence against women in the form of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse or spousal killing is such a routine behavior that it rarely ever makes the news anymore. Today, rape of women is increasingly used as a weapon of war. Women are often blamed and questioned about actions if they become the victims of rape or physical abuse, while their attackers may not face such questioning. The society in which we live today has been shaped historically by males. The policy-makers have consistently been male and therefore it is not surprising that our society reflects those biases which exist as a result of this “male-domination.”