VOICES

Action For Women's Rights

January 21, 2020 | PBAT MAGAZINE

By Mahmoda Farooq, Aicha Kane, Mayra Minero & Tania Rodriguez

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“I have faced gender inequality everywhere the entire society  is structured to degrade and kind of putting women down, and I mean there are so many ways.” -Ellie, she was working in the RSAY program during 2019 summer time but now she is studying to become a nurse. Women have not achieved full equality in U.S because women are still being affected by a gender wage gap and other workplace inequality, women are also facing sexual harassment in their workplace, and women do not have equal representation in the government. In our society, there are always prejudices about gender inequality. People believe that women don't have the same skills and they are not strong enough to do the same jobs as men. 

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FIHS Voices is focusing on this topic because as women reporters we know the feeling when women are being treated differently because of their gender, and we wanted to find out the extent of the problem. Women need to get the same payment, equal treatment, equal opportunities. 

 

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The Fight For Women’s Equality

 

Women were not equal with men, from the beginning, when the only thing that women could do was to stay home and cook take care of the children do the housework, while only men allowed to work and vote.  Only in 1920 did women start getting the right to vote. The 19th Amendment, passed by Congress June 4, 1919 and ratified on August 18, 1920 finally gave the right to vote for women who where citizens in the United States. The amendment states that the right of citizens to vote ¨Shall not be denied or abridged by the United State or by any State on account of sex.” and finally guarantee all American women suffrage. 

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The women’s suffrage movement was a decades long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States it took a while and the campaign for women's suffrage began in the mid 1800’s. After getting the right women to vote women began fighting for the right to work. At first, they can work in Hospitals, Schools, Social workers, and librarians. But now other types of jobs opened up for women for example police officers, military, judges, doctor, teacher cashier and other more.

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However, even when they could work they were still facing discrinination. One form of discrimination was men were getting paid more than women for the same work. Subsequently, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 protected women because they want to treat the same and gave the same pay. The Equal Pay Act put into law by President John F. Kennedy on June 10,1963, focused on  equal earnings for both gender  men and women by illegalizing discrimination based on sex. When the equal pay Act  was signed women were actually earning even less – or 59 cents for every dollar earned by men. 

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Following the Women's Rights Movement, also known as the Women's Liberation Movement. The Women's Rights Movement started in the 1960s and 1970s, focused on equality, opportunities and personal freedom for women. The Civil Rights Act of 1964  prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of sex as well as race, color, national origin, and religion. Nevertheless, women continued to be denied jobs because of their sex and were often sexually harassed at the workplace.  also protect women that it doesnt matter what religion you are or what type race color or sex national origin we are all the same John F kennedy also fight for women by survived strong opposition from southen member of congress was then signed into law by kennedy. In addition the law Title IX  was passed by the Congress on June 23, 1972,   “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

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This movement continued until the late 1970s and early 80s When activist women tried to fight for passing the Equal Rights Amendment, also known as the E.R.A. That would constitutionally under the law guarantee that women and men are treated equally. This amendment stated "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex".  One main reason for this amendment is because women were paid less than men even with the same job position. This Amendment was denied because it didn't have enough support from the states. In order to be an Amendment require ratification by three-fourths of the states (38) and it has to be approved by the legislative branch. The Equal Rights Amendment was passed by Congress on March 22 in 1972 and sent to the states for ratification. In order to be added to the Constitution, it needed approval by legislatures in three-fourths (38) of the 50 states.  

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Gender Pay Gap

 

Daniel Garcia is a supervisor of Saint John Vianney Roman Catholic Church. He is also the supervisor of the prayer group each Wednesday and Friday. He once said, “Women need to get the same payment because they work hard and passionate in what they are doing in their workplace.” 

 

However, women are not paid the same equal pay in the jobs. On average, a woman earns 80.5 cents for every dollar a man earns, and women's median annual earnings are $10,086 less than men's, according to data from the 2017 U.S. Census Bureau.

The percentage increases somewhat for female workers between the ages of 25 and 34, indicating that women outside of this range fare worse when it comes to ​​pay equality. Women within this range earned 90 percent of men's salaries and wages, although this is still significantly less than equal. ​​  

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However, the pay gap is even worse for certain minority women with black women earning 61 cents on the dollar and latina women earning 53 cents on the dollar. A possible solution for gender inequality problem is to find a way to enforce the laws and also make more protest to let all boss, government and other that women keep fighting for equal rights. 

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The organization called the National Organization for Women started in the year 1966. This organization help the women in the society to get equal right the organization founded by President John F. Kennedy  he stabilized this organizations for help women with in hopes of providing a solution to female discrimination in education, work force, and society. President Kennedy appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as the head of the organization for the can help the women and all situation she fight for that the women has the equal pay and not more descrmination in the women. The compromise this organization is to defend the rights of the women to have the same equality.   

 

Similarly, there are people in government that are also fighting gender equality. Congresswoman Grace Meng Congress women” this organization work to defend the rights of women and also the same salary. This organization helps people for immigrantion not only problems  of women. This congress is ubicate and many places of United State U.S. Congresswoman Grace Meng is serving her fourth term in the United States House of Representatives. Grace represents the Sixth Congressional District of New York encompassing the New York City borough of Queens, including west, central and northeast Queens. Grace is the first Asian person that is a member of the congress of the United State, she working day to day for that women have the same salary  and also the equality that the men

 

Anthony J. Lemma III is the District Director of the office Congresswoman Grace Meng said he has worked with the cases  of the women that have the problem a gender inequality. He is not sure why this continues to be a problem, but he thinks to solve the problem, it needs the help of all people not just women. Congresswoman Meng is a huge supporter of gender equality and sits on many committees in Congress for equality. It’s going to take laws, btu also ways to enforce those laws to solve this problem.

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Even when women gained greater equality, it was not enough because women still faced unequal treatment in many other ways in the workplace. In the past, there were barely any women professionals “I'm a journalist’s I get this jobs 40 years ago, when I start journalist I was a very interesting time. The year before I started there were only 5 female reporters in the whole newspaper. The Newspaper where in a lot of pressure to start hiring a lot of women.” said Julie Salamon. She is an author and She graduated from North Adams (Ohio) High School, and the Tufts University and New York University School of Law.

 

Today, there are many more female professionals. A managing partner in a Manhattan law firm said “There are a lot more male lawyers than female. Very interestingly, the newly hired lawyers for the last several years have been more female than male.” However, there are “far more male partners than female in management. Chairman and managing partner are both male and the Executive Committee is majority male.” He further expressed that “Yes. Gender equality is still a problem, as is diversity generally. We have a number of programs trying to address the issue, including mentoring and coaching for women and minorities, but inequalities persist despite efforts.”

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“In my opinion gender inequality basically means that men get more privileges than women whether it’s in the workplace or in real life, for example women of to get sexully harassed in the work place, again because of their gender. And they do get less pay than men and overall I feel like women get promoted less often than men. It’s not only in the workplace either it’s anywhere. Women always have the pressure put on them whether it’s at home or work and they never get any credit for it, and that causing them depression. The word that I truly want to spread is that gender inequality is something that we can not escape ever since Seneca Falls and it’s just permanent.” said Zahrra, she is a 14 years old that was born and raised in U.S and a recent wrestling team player, and she is attending high school in Long Island.

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Fahima Farooq she is from Afghanistan she live now in the United States. She is a Shift Manager for a store and she expressed that, “Gender inequality continues then it will affect our next generation, and we should take action against that and find the right way for it. Not only men should get all the privilege and respect female need theirs respect and privilege equality to men.” There are gender inequality in workplaces based on gender. And based on the survey we took from people we can see that people are facing gender inequality or is some jobs that don't have even one women in their workplace because they think that they will not be qualified for that. 

 

 

Survey Results

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We have decided to take surveys from people who are working/employed because we want to know more if they have face gender inequality or the issue of wage gap based on their work position. We have taken this survey from some teachers in our school, people from outside in different work places and positions.The survey results in the google sheet. 

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