Langlie

Cody Langlie
Pamela Reed
RHET 1311
12 November 2015
Women's Equality
Should everyone have equal rights and opportunities? Equality, defined by
Google, the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities. If the
only difference between one another is age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or race,
than each person should have equal rights and opportunities. Sadly, that is not how
society works. Many people have biases that affect their judgement. These biases
deeply hurt everyone in which is depicted in an non positive way. Two of these places
where these biases cause inequality is in the workplace and politics. Those two areas
are very important to everyone in a democratic capitalist society. Inequalities in either
one of those areas are deeply detrimental to society. Giving all people equal rights and
opportunities wont hurt anyone. Proving both the workplace and politics are places of
inequalities will make people more aware of the negative impact it has on society.
Inequality in the workplace is still prevalent among both gender and race in the
U.S. today. Some of this inequality is either displayed through managerial positions or
the amount of income. Less income based on gender or race is one of the largest
injustices in the modern workplace. Income equality among genders shouldnt be the

Langlie

most challenging thing to accomplish in the modern workplace, yet it remains to be a

very serious issue. Census data from 2009 shows, on average, American women earn
seventy-seven cents for every dollar their male counterparts receive (Clarke, 2015). On
the short term, twenty-three cents less may not seem large, but the total earnings of that
woman would be considerably less than her male counterpart over the length of their
careers. The inequality based on gender and minorities is even greater. AfricanAmerican women make sixty-one cents for each dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic
men, and Latina women make fifty-two cents for each dollar earned by white, nonHispanic men (Clarke, 2015). Earning far less just because of skin color and gender
seems to just be blatant discrimination in the 21 st century. If the person who is subject to
less compensation for the same work and qualifications gets paid less deliberately, than
it should be conceived as discrimination. There is no legality of discriminating based
upon a persons race or gender, therefore this should never occur. Yet, everyday
someone probably doesnt get hired, receive a raise, or promotion because of their age,
gender, sexual orientation, religion, or race. Since the U.S. is seen as an advance
society this should be seen as a shameful action, but some people encourage or even
partake in discrimination. People which discriminate based on irrational and illogical
qualities of one's self shouldnt be allowed to be in the position of making a choice that
could deeply affect someone's life. Those kind of decisions should be made by a person
in which rationally weighs decisions with various criteria, more so than one which judges
based on sex or race. Hopefully, these kind of problems can resolved with a new
generations, but only time will tell.

Langlie

Women are grossly underrepresented in the U.S. on many forefronts. One of the
worst places to be underrepresented is in the United States Congress. Yet, women
make up the majority of the U.S. and are not equally represented in Congress.
[W]omen hold less than 20 percent of congressional seats (Keremidchieva, 2012).
Twenty percent is a low figure considering there are more women in the U.S. than men.
The women in the U.S. deserve equal representation so their interest can put forth to
the rest of representatives. Most men in congress often push women's issues and
interest away so they can push their unimportant special issues onto the public. In the
1980s and 90s a group, called CCWI, was attempting to push the public's interest
forward. The Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues (CCWI) is a bi-partisan
membership organization of representatives committed to advancing women's interests
in Congress(Keremidchieva, 2012). While the CCWI was attempting to take advantage
of the growing public discourse of the feminization of poverty, many male
representatives, though aware of the growing electoral presence of women, still would
not take womens interests seriously (Keremidchieva, 2012). So, instead of taking
womens interests seriously, they ignore a very important issue because they dont feel
deeply about it. It seems ridiculous to ignore an issue because one doesnt feel deeply
enough about it. If that issue is important to the people one is representing than they
should at least show interest or try to find a halfway decent solution. By helping to
decide what is in the best interest of the population rather than their own special
agendas the country could become better. Bettering the country should be in the
interest of all politicians. And, although, representation of women has gotten much
better that in the 80s and 90s, there are still great leaps to make. This year, [f]emale

Langlie

lawmakers account for 20 seats in the U.S. Senate and a record 84 seats in the House,
up from 80 during the last Congress (Forbes, 2015). Making great strides in congress
will help further the spread of equal representation. What's more, while the presence of
women in the highest political positions remains anemic, 63% of Americans believe the
country would be better governed if more women held elected office (Forbes, 2015).
Since sixty-three percent of people believe that the country would be governed better if
more women were elected to office, wouldnt it make more sense to elect more women?
Probably so, however, it will be a long time before there is an equal number of males
and females representing the public. Making for an unjustified inequality facing women
in todays world.
Grasping the inequalities women face throughout their lives is very difficult to
undertake. Many people dont want to see the realities of the harsh truths behind the
common masquerade of false equality. Both men and women face a world that is
constantly stereotyping everything into categories, one for this, this one for another.
These categories dont define people, the only thing that defines oneself is his or her
actions. People should make their actions positive, make a great change in life, show
everyone that they are not defined by this one single aspect. Whether this aspect is
their gender, race, religion, sex, sexuality, or age one should always believe that they
can make a difference. That difference may affect others around them, by doing so it
could have a positive effect on everyone.

Langlie

Work Cited
Clarke, Jessica B. "$0.77 Does Not Equal $1.00: A Perspective On The Ledbetter Fair
Pay Act In A Dukes V. Wal-Mart World." Labor & Employment Law
Forum 1.2

(2011): 247. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 12

Nov. 2015.
Keremidchieva, Zornitsa. "Legislative Reform, The Congressional Caucus For Women's
Issues, And The Crisis Of Women's Political Representation." Women &
Language 35.1 (2012): 13-38. Academic Search Complete. Web.
22 Nov. 2015.
Forbes, M 2015, '5 Reasons For Optimism This International Women's Day',
Forbes.Com, p. 1, Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File,
EBSCOhost,

viewed 23 November 2015.