The Gender Equality Movement

Women’s struggle for equality will remain relevant in the future as a global issue because every country today still struggles to obtain successful women’s equality. Women today are determined to fight for their rights, rights that are detrimental to the success of society. The struggle for women’s equality is something that has plagued women for centuries. Societies throughout history have been ruled by the iron fist of men, in royal families, the working class, and even within the households. This is something that is most common in todays underdeveloped countries, women are treated as being less than men and therefore do not deserve the same rights. This however is something that women have recognized as a problem and are unwavering in their fight to establish equal rights, whether it be in the United States or even Africa, the cry for equality is the same.

With the advancement of suffrage to equal pay, over the last century, women’s rights have progressed immensely. Through historic marches and demonstrations across the United States, women protested for their equal place in politics and social progress. Despite the fear-mongering components used in achieving these rights, women’s rights are still thoroughly debated within society today. Over the last century, incredible and unreachable goals have been fulfilled for women, such as the right to vote and a sense of equal state in the “Free World,” and can only improve in the years to come.

In middle eastern society Many may claim that the women in the middle east are being oppressed but the same may be said about women living in the west. Until quite recently in time women here in the United States received an equal status to men. Whereas these traditions and

1869 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton create the National Woman Suffrage Association. They intend that the institution would change the way that the masses perceive women in general. The main purpose of the group is to relate to the Constitution as one of the documents emphasizing that Congress should allow women to be provided with voting rights.

The beginning of the fight for women’s suffrage in the United States, which predates Jeannette Rankin’s entry into Congress by nearly 70 years, grew out of a larger women’s rights movement. That reform effort evolved during the 19th century, initially emphasizing a broad spectrum of goals before focusing solely on securing the franchise for women. Women’s suffrage leaders, moreover, often disagreed about the tactics for and the emphasis (federal versus state) of their reform efforts. Ultimately, the suffrage movement provided political training for some of the early women pioneers in Congress,

The Women’s Rights Movement has been around since July 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention where the spark ignited women to fight for their rights in the U.S. Fighting for the freedom to vote and have the same basic rights as men. Voting rights were predominantly the main focus of this movement until 1920 where all women in the U.S. gained the right to vote. As one fight ended, a new one began, thus, the fight for equality in a male dominated workforce began. Women were working well before the 1920’s, but it became the focus as World War 1 ended and more women were working in the factories. The Women in the Workplace movement has diminished over time because once women gained the ability to work equally besides men the focus went towards gaining

Feminist have only ever wanted one thing, to be treated equally as their male counterparts. In school settings the only part of the women’s rights movement that is really discussed is the suffrage movement. There were a lot of women involved in the fight for equality, Susan B Anthony being the most recognized today. There is a hidden American history to the women’s rights movement, women of color were equally involved as white women. As Terrell once stated, “A white woman has only one handicap to overcome, a great one, true, her sex; a colored woman faces two-her sex and her race” (Conger). Women of color have been active, present voice within feminism, despite American history not giving them credit.

For a long time, Arabic’s women have been seen as downtrodden people on a male chauvinist community, but not always were like that. In pre-Islamic Arabia, women's status varied widely according to laws and cultural norms of the tribes in which they lived. For example, in the prosperous southern region of the Arabian Peninsula the religious edicts of Christianity and Judaism held sway among the Sabians and Himyarites. In other places such as the city of Makkah (Mecca) -- where the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, was born—a tribal set of rights was in place. The Qur’an, which is from century VII, is highly specific as to women’s rights and men’s rights as an unbroken human, independent and believer of freedom.

Unfortunately, the era of men and women being equal was hasty. Briefly after Mohammed’s death Islamic society changed, so did the interpretations of the Quran to meet different circumstances. Almost simultaneously women became inferior almost being viewed as possessions and property. Having choices was no longer an option for women, whatever the man said became the law. Girls at birth could be killed by their father’s because boys carried the name of the family while girls usually were concubines, workers, or sold. Most significantly women’s roles depended largely on what the husband’s economic status was. If the husband was a farmer the wife had to help in the fields or if the husband worked in the city she had to help run the business.

ransitioning away from the overview of the women’s movement, it is important to look at the women separately from the movement in a more general fashion. Are these women receiving any benefits from the meaningful Westernized gratitude? The significance of this comes from the Western approach of what a woman is and how Japanese women are determined to embody these characteristics and styles to fit into this standard. Clothing and beauty are two momentous ways of seeing how the West has been an essential part of Japanese women.

The feminist movement originally derived from a focus on dismantling workplace inequality, suffering from accessing better jobs creating gender specific salary inequality within the workforce. However, gender discrimination changed when the Civil Rights Act was proposed, this movement is often called the “Second Wave” of the feminist movement. The movement fought to achieve equality for women by challenging many unfair labor laws. The movement also informed women about sex and reproduction rights and fought to legalize the use of birth control. Also, feminists established many organizations and wrote books, articles, and essays challenging gender differences. The feminist movement began to gain ground when the Presidential Commission published

The Women’s Liberation Movement greatly impacted Australia and the United States throughout the 60’s and 70’s carrying on to the 90’s. Without the Women’s Liberation Movement women wouldn’t have received changes in laws primarily regarding employment impacting on them moving forward in terms of equal opportunities. However there is still a there is still process to be made concerning employment and social roles for women to have equal rights as men. The Women’s Liberation Movement started in the 60’s during the second wave of feminism. Even though the 70’s were a time of change, both Australia and the United States saw women remaining in low status roles and staying primarily in the domestic sphere. The 90’s however saw a dramatic change in the amount of women employed and working more so in the domestic sphere.

Women in American society have endured numerous struggles to fight for equality throughout history. Today American women have come a long way by narrowing gender gaps and becoming successful in aspects of life that are prominently male dominated. Although American women are living a better life than they were years ago, they still deal with inequality when it comes to the workforce, income, politics, domestic duties, and sex. The reason women are not equal to men in these aspects of life are because men hold most of the jobs in the STEM fields of work, make higher incomes than women in the same level of employment, dominate congress and the government, not looked upon to take care of the house duties, and are praised for sex rather than shamed like women are. Living as an American woman today is far from difficult but in contrast, living as an American man is still substantially better.

There seems to be a general consensus that since equality has been achieved in the west, the fight for women’s rights and equality is not necessary anymore. That because European and North-American women can vote, own property and marry at own will, there is nothing more to fight for. However, simply because women in the west are somewhat treated equally to men, that does not mean that it is the standard in the rest of the world. Think about the millions upon millions of women in third world and war prone countries, who live in constant terror, who are sold as child brides to adult men, because having a daughter is too great of a burden. Women who cannot even leave their own homes without a man by their side, women who cannot walk home alone at night, or walk alone at all because the risk of rape is to large, women who are kidnapped, trafficked and forced into prostitution. Are they equal? We cannot simply renounce the fight for gender equality as unnecessary because we supposedly do not need it in the west anymore, when women across the globe are constantly abused, violated, disrespected, harassed and treated as second-class citizens on a daily basis. Yes, we have come a long way over the past 100 years, in the west, however we have an even longer way to go before we reach the finish line. Gender inequality is still a problem even if it does not happen as much in western countries, and to think that the fight for equal rights for women is over because North American and

The role of women in Islam has evolved over time. During the time of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as well as the era that shortly followed the Prophet’s death, women were given a great sense of power, freedom, and rights. However, because the Quran and hadith are open to many different interpretations, a male-dominated society began to slowly restrict the rights of women and slowly began to push their roles towards staying within the household and being protected by being secluded. This is evident in societies today such as Saudi Arabia. However, over history, as well as in modern times, numerous women have overcome these obstacles and made a clear difference in society.