By Danielle Davenport |
Many people tend to believe that sexism dissipated and we achieved gender equality with women’s suffrage but this is simply not the case. Although this is a common belief, women today are still fighting for their rights.
Women remain frequent victims of rape and sexual assault. According to the Rape Crisis Center, one in four women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. While 98 percent of rapists will never see a day in jail, many men fear being sexually assaulted in incarceration but fail to realize that women live with that fear in everyday life.
There is also a substantial wage gap between women and men. Caucasian women, on average make 78 percent of what Caucasian men make and the gap is even wider for women of color. Hispanic women make just 56 percent of what Caucasian men make. Although there is a law against discrimination based on gender, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, employers today still perpetuate this prejudice by continuing to pay women reduced wages compared to men.
Womens’ and girls’ rights are a global issue, such as in Pakistan where 4.5 million girls aren’t allowed to get an education. Also, in countries such as Niger there is an enormous amount of child brides with 78 percent of girls married before they are 18.
Men and women alike will shy away and turn their noses up when they hear about women’s rights, mostly due to patriarchal societies and the male-dominated state of many cultures. Although it is easy to ignore these issues, they can only be surmounted if we work together to make the world a better place. We are letting our mothers, daughters, and sisters become beacons of assault and inequity and if these issues are not confronted we will be teaching them that they are not worth as much as men.
Furthermore, sexism, gender inequality, and violence against women are adverse issues that need to be addressed immediately.