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Women Equality Essay

Decent Essays

The concept of equality between men and women has been heavily deliberated for the past few decades, but as we discussed in class throughout the week, it’s become increasingly clear that people have drastically different ideas on what constitutes equality. Originally, when posed the question, I brought up the more prominent issues facing women in our society, politically, socially, and economically. Politically, I believe that for men and women to be equal, women need to be proportionately represented in government, from local offices to the oval office. I personally discovered the importance of this issue when I realized that women make up less than 20% of Congress, thus making men the primary deciders of women’s issues. This is a …show more content…

My classmate, Elise Favvia, added to this by dictating how, as a STEM major, she often sees women underrepresented in the field as well as noting that many other western nations allow women paid maternity leave, while the United States has yet to. Overall, these were my initial ideas on the conditions for equality of men and women in our society. However, through my small group discussion and class discussion, I realized that I focused on the surface issues but I overlooked the deeper underlying issues that should be addressed. For instance, Kexin Li brought up the idea intersectionality. She explained how it was necessary to recognize that women are not a single, homogenous group, but rather a diverse group with sub-sections that each have their own issues. This led her to discussing the difference between equity and equality, as equity implies noting people’s differences and reaching equality through helping each group with their distinct needs, while equality implies treating everyone equally, which, now knowing the concept of intersectionality, might not actually create equality of the sexes. I deeply resonated with these ideas, as I had heard of intersectionality before, but I had never thought of it as a “condition for equality”, however, Kexin Li’s explanation convinced me otherwise. An idea from the class discussion that resonated with me was Alexis Availes’ idea of “leadership rhetoric”, specifically in public documents. She

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