Women And Gender Inequality

In today’s world, despite the advances that have been made towards gender equality, there continues to be a disparity between the way women and men are treated in the United States. The most prominent issues women and girls face stem from the gender inequality that arises in our society where women receive unequal treatment based on their sex. This leads to discrimination and violence that women experience every day of their lives. They are confronted with this at home, by friends, family, and strangers, and at school and in the workplace. They also suffer by having their access to sexual health controlled, their reproductive rights restricted, from being sexually assaulted and harassed, and from victim blaming. An important barrier that women …show more content…
Alice Paul, a suffragist leader and the founder of the U.S National Women’s Party, wrote the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1923. The social, economic, and political discrimination that women had been facing was unjust and Alice Paul wanted to introduce equal rights under the law for all persons. In 1943 she rewrote the ERA to state, It soon became the foremost symbol of the movement to gain equal rights focusing on the fact that all people are born equal, should have equality, and be provided with the basic right to protection under the society in which they live. Though Congress passed the ERA in 1972, it only had the support of 35 states, not the 38 that were required to amend the Constitution. Therefore, in 1982, the ratification of the ERA failed, and although it has been presented to every Congressional session ever since, it has failed each time. Therefore, the concept that men and women are equal still fails to be represented in the U.S. …show more content…
The ERA coalition works tirelessly to gain the ratification of the ERA, which is still as necessary today as it was in 1923. The ERA Coalition is one way in which the fight for equality continues and includes such organizations as the YWCA, Alice Paul Institute, ERA Education Project, National Congress for Black Women, National ERA Alliance, Vote ERA, Equality Now, and more. Such organizations work to spread public awareness about the need for the ratification of the ERA. Equal Means Equal is a upcoming documentary being directed by Kamala Lopez about how women are treated in America today, individuals can take the ERA pledge and can join the ERA Coalition, and for the upcoming 2016 election, on change.org there is a petition made by Patricia Arquette with Equal Rights Advocates that will b be sent to the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate to ratify the ERA. Also in this 2015-2016 Congressional session there are also two separate ERA legislators being presented, one to ratify the ERA by the Article V ratification process and the other by the “three-state strategy” in order to eliminate the time limit set on the ERA’s ratification process so it may be passed when 38 states approve