Formal Essay #2 Final Draft

December 1, 2012

Dear American Voters:

American society is striving to become more equal by trying to eliminate discrimination, give equal pay, and ensure that everyone has equal rights. While this push for equality is great, this goal has not yet been achieved and Americans have instead become complacent because they feel that they are closer than they really are to achieving it. In particular women’s equality has fallen behind the front line, and is no longer seen as an important battle to fight because most Americans believe that it has already been won. This is not the case however. Our current policies show that women don’t have the same rights as men and it is demonstrated in our culture as well. In order to gain full equality for women, Americans need to understand that women are still being discriminated against, then they have to take steps to ensure that women see fair representation in high level jobs in corporations and governments so that they can create policies that will help them rather than have men create policies that perpetuate our current unequal situation.

Current American policies don’t directly discriminate against women. It is more that there aren't many laws that protect women from being treated unequally. An opposing view is that it is condescending to make laws that protect women because our constitution already grants them equality. This may sound valid at first, but the fact is that there are many instances were women aren't being treated equally to men, and they have no defense currently because there aren't many laws that they can fall back on. One landmark bill that was signed into law recently was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Before this law, employees had 180 days after receiving their first unequal pay check to file for a lawsuit. After this period had expired, there was no way for them to file a suit against their employer for paying them less than their male counterparts. This was unfair and unreasonable for many reasons, primarily, because the women had to find out that they were being paid less than their male counterparts in such a short time frame. This would be hard to figure out unless they regularly compared checks with their male coworkers, which rarely occurs. After this law, employees now have 180 days after every unequal pay check to file for a lawsuit against their employer. This does two things to help women. First, it encourages corporations to fix their longtime unequal pay situations because if they still are paying their female employees less than their male employees they could face a lawsuit now. Secondly, it gives a longer amount of time to allow women to find out if they’re being paid differently than other employees. This law was derived from a Supreme Court case titled Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. In this case, Lilly Ledbetter had filed a lawsuit against her employer, Goodyear Tires, for paying her less than other male employees. Ledbetter lost the case because she had filed the lawsuit after the 180 day period. Interestingly enough, the Supreme Court Judge that led the dissent was the only female on the bench, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

This inequality is not just shown in our laws or lack there of, but in our culture as well. In most Americans minds, the ideal man is shown as tall, muscular, and trim. The ideal woman is shown as skinny, tall, and blond. In the media this portrayal of men and women is also seen. With children growing up playing with dolls and watching TV shows that only show one body type it’s understandable that there were "over 9 million surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures performed in the United States in 2011" (American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery), with the majority of these procedures being for women. It seems that even though this issue affects both women and men, women are affected more because of the bombardment that they see every day in magazines and advertisements that are directed towards them talking about how to stay thin and lose weight and showing a skinny super model. Men don't see themselves dissected as much in their magazines. Instead they see the same female super models that are shown in women’s magazines. It’s bad enough that women feel that they are not ideal because of the magazines that they read, but having men not think so too makes the situation even worse.

According to the 2010 census, women make up 50.8% of the American population. That means that men are actually the minority, even if by only .8%. Despite this fact, women only make up 16.9% of the U.S. National Legislature jobs according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The U.S. ranked in 91^st place compared against other countries regarding this issue. The U.S. is 2.4% below the international average in employing women in government. For a country that thinks they are a progressive beacon for other nations to follow, the U.S. is falling short.

America needs more women in their government if they want to end inequality against them. As shown in the Lilly Ledbetter court case, five male judges thought that it was okay for a woman to be paid less than her male counterparts because a certain time frame had passed. Where as only three male judges understand that this was wrong and joined Ginsburg in her dissent against the ruling. If the Supreme Court bench had had more than one woman they probably would have ruled in favor of Ledbetter. We need to see more women in every branch of government. We need to see more women as senators, as governors, as house of representative members, as state legislators, as mayors, and hopefully one day, as U.S. President’s.

Having equal gender representation in government is the first step towards achieving gender equality in our society. With more women in government we will have more laws that protect women against inequality. With these laws we will be able to have more women in high corporate jobs. With high corporate jobs, women can start to change our media and our culture to become more equal and to help abolish ads and magazine articles that induce self hatred and body image issues in girls and women.

In addition to sexism, Americans also need to help fight against homophobia, racism, religious persecution, and other types of discrimination. I believe that citizens can help solve these issues by electing more openly gay representatives, Muslim representatives, and multicultural representatives to our government. Dealing with gender inequality and sexism is just a piece of a large puzzle, that, when completed, will create a world with respect for everyone regardless of their differences.

Sincerely,

Jayden N.