Women s Rights Myth Or Truth - 1669 Words

Alexia Martin Mrs. Akelman AP Language and Composition 24 February 2016 Women’s Rights: Myth or Truth? In our first American history class, we learn about the battles we won, disasters we dodged, and equality we achieved. We learn about religious freedom, how slaves were freed, and how women gained the right to vote in 1920. Focussing on the victories allows us to disregard the inequality that is ever present in our society today. We turn a blind eye to the blatant discrimination, and many accept it and believe America is completely equal. While America has improved tenfold over the many years due to protests and reformation, our country still has a very long way to go. There is still racial prejudice, controversy over sexuality, and†¦show more content†¦This statistic alone shows that women are viewed as less important and unworthy of the same financial stability that a man is entitled to. This is an important issue because women are the breadwinners for more than 50% of American households. (The White House) Families and children depend on women to get a substantial in come, and without receiving as high of a salary as a man, the households who rely on women are at a disadvantage. Simple school supplies, medical expenses, and college tuition are all harder to obtain and pay for for those families who rely on women to provide the bulk or all of the income. It takes mothers an extra six months to acquire the same amount of money that fathers earn in one year, which sets them back and makes it harder for women to live a life equal to that of a man. (The White House) While the Equal Pay Act was put into place in 1963, the pay gap definitely still exists. This shows that even though there are restrictions on unequal pay, somehow businesses and corporations are getting around it and allowing men to make more money than women. Some may say that there are obvious solutions to this pay gap. They say that women should receive a higher education to allow them to get higher paying jobs, or apply to executive positions in order to close the pay gap. These so c alled solutions are not well thought out and are completely wrong, because studies show that any level of education, from high