Women's Equality In America

Initially, I had a misconception about taking writing 20-17 with an emphasis of gender and equality. I was skeptical about taking this course because I thought feminism was solely about women wanting to be men and this class would be mostly women and a few “gay” guys. In addition, I believed the differences that separate men and women which include rights, wages, representation in society etc. significantly improved and women are virtually equal to men in our current day. However, after learning a new perspective about how women are still discriminated in current political America was the moment I was convinced women’s equality is something we as a society are far from achieving.
My moment of insight which became the 180 degree turn in the

class was learning about how women are misrepresented in the workplace. Throughout the film, Miss Representation author Jennifer Newsom discusses how before children are influenced by media and their parents, both boys and girls aspire to take on non-gender specific roles. What this means is that girls may want to become the President of the United States and boys may want to stay at home and do nothing. This is so because, children are unaffected by the external environment which society has created which engrains in our minds that certain genders must pursue certain roles. However, when boys and girls reach their adolescent teen years, their decisions about future professions change because of the way media and society dictates what specific roles both genders must follow (Newsom). This causes girls to not want to take on leadership positions such as CEO’S and becoming President because these roles are labeled by society to be for strong leaders which apparently only men are.
In support of Newsom’s idea that children who are influenced tend to follow certain societal career paths, she explains the reasoning behind why women only make up roughly 20% of Congress. This statistic made me ponder on why this was the case being that “We the People” cast votes on who we want to represent the population in government. Therefore, obtaining government roles, unlike trying to get a job where the boss only hires people similar in race and gender, should be easier. Also, since women comprise of roughly 50% of the population, women should be well represented because women can vote for their their own gender. However, Newsom argues, “Boys vote for boys and girls vote for boys, but some of the time, girls do not vote for girls because girls are harder on other girls” (Newsom).
This was the tipping point in the class for me because I initially believed women did not run because they were not suitable for the position. Nevertheless, even if they did run, they have a difficult time being accepted by society as leaders because media has engrained what the stereotypical leader of the country should be which is strong and aggressive.
By only having men in government positions causes decision making to be bias in favor of men. This is absurd because women make up roughly 50% of the U.S. population and it is unfair that men are the last ones to make final decisions which affect the whole population. Women’s voices are never heard because they only make up a fraction of Congress and since decisions are based on a majority, they are easily outnumbered.
We must make this 180 degree turn of understanding how and why women are undermined in society. By not only watching this film, but understanding the struggles women face on a daily basis will be the moment in which society has their moment of insight about how unfair the system is.