Women’s Injustice
“Experience has shown that when women have the freedom to make their own economic and social choices, the chains of poverty can be broken; families are strengthened; income is used for more productive purposes; the spread of sexually transmitted disease slows; and socially constructive values are more likely to be handed down to the young.” – Madeleine Albright, quoted in Women Empowered, by Phil Borges. Everyday, all around the world women are faced with discrimination and inequality. Women experience violence, abuse and unequal treatment at home, in the workplace and in the communities they live in. March 8th has been known as “International Women’s Day” for about one hundred years. It is a day to celebrate the accomplishments of women and to raise awareness on the inequality that still exists today. Women should feel like they have the right to have an equal role in government policies, structures and decisions that affect their lives and their community.It has been shown that women face injustice in the workplace, at home, in school and in everyday public settings. Women face injustices such as being withheld from receiving an education, forced into marriages, being victims of physical and/or sexual violence, and gender pay.
“Globally, an estimated 130 million girls are not in school, and many other girls who are in school struggle to stay there and finish their education” (Plan International, Because I am a Girl). In a lot of developing countries girls are not sent to school at the same rate or time as boys are. Back in 1999. The Taliban actually banned girls from receiving any type of education. Receiving an education has actually been linked to women having more self confidence, capabilities, and improving their life. An educated woman tends to have more knowledge of nutrition, healthcare, they tend to marry later and raise happier, healthier children if they choose to become mothers. Education helps a female to have free expression and gain control of their own lives. Education helps women to realize their potential in the world and are able to contribute to society socially and economically.
Child marriage violates human rights, prohibits growing education and can actually put their health at risk. Every year, almost twelve million girls are forced into marriage. This can hinder a young girl’s development because of early pregnancy or social isolation, it places young females into adult roles that they are not prepared for. I read a story that was told by Misha Valencia about a woman who was forced into a marriage at the age of nineteen. Fraidy Reiss grew up ultra-orthodox Jewish and when she was just nineteen years old she was involuntarily married to a twenty-two year old man that she never met. Reiss had explained that in her community, young women do not have the opportunity to decide when they want to and if they want to get married, the process of the arranged marriage generally begins around eleventh or twelfth grade. To her community, not getting married was very disgraceful, since women were treated terribly so Reiss was rightfully afraid. Her husband became violent after just a week of marriage. He controlled every detail of her life, she was not allowed to have money, have a driver’s license, or go to school. Divorce is obviously legal everywhere in the United States but in their religious culture it was only permitted for the man to “grant” a divorce. Reiss finally got enough courage to leave her abusive husband and file for divorce in the New Jersey courts but even trying to leave she was exposed to threats, stalking and harassment. “Leaving an abuser often triggers a serious escalation of violence by abusers who are determined to possess and control their partner” (Joan Meier, Professor of Law and Director of the National Family Violence Law Center). After leaving her husband, Reiss graduated from Rutgers as the valedictorian with a journalism degree. As of 2019, she is the founder and executive director of “Unchained At Last”, which is an organization that directs its efforts to end forced and child marriage. “This is happening in all communities and many girls are forced into a marriage before they have full rights of adulthood. It is a horrific form of human rights abuse” (Fraidy Reiss).
The gender wage gap is the average difference between the compensation for men and women who receive working wages. This wage gap has consistently proven that women earn less than men, and the gap is even larger for women of color. An evaluation from the Census Bureau shows that women of all races earned just eighty-two cents for every one dollar that is earned by men of all races. This is calculated by taking the ratio of median yearly earnings for women who are working full time to those of males, which translates to an eighteen cent gap. But talking about the gap in terms of just cents diminishes the real impact this has on women. A woman who works year round full time will make $10,194 less than a male who also works full time, year round. If this wage gap remains the same for forty years, the same women would then make $407,760 less than that male.
Women’s equality to men is a form of systemic injustice because it violates basic forms of human rights in some aspects. When you force someone into a marriage you are basically stripping them of their identity and what they could have made for themselves in a way. Taking away their right to an education is “clipping their wings” essentially by not letting them grow into confident, strong, smart women. For this particular diary of systemic injustice I believe this follows along with Simone de Beauvoir’s, The One and The Other theory. Women are always looked at as “inferior” to men, we are always viewed as “The Other” and men have always been seen at “The One”. Below I have attached a video from Fraidy Reiss that explains why forced/child marriage is wrong and the statistics her foundation has founded along with a graph of the average earnings gap between women and men over the course of forty years.
Works Cited
Cristina Costantini. “7 Injustices Faced by Women Around the World”, March 5, 2013.
Jane Arscott. “The Conversation: Time’s Up for Gender Injustice: What Every Woman Wants in 2018”. January 10, 2018.
“Plan International: 3 Social Injustices that Girls Face Around the World”, 2021.
Misha Valencia. “Trapped: The American Women and Girls Forced into Marriage”, December 4, 2020
Robin Bleiweis. Center for American Progress: Quick Facts About the Gender Wage Gap”, March 24, 2020.
It’s very sad to see how even in modern times women are not treated equal to their male counterparts. Women have come a long way fighting for equality. A lot of women have sacrificed their life for women now to be able to do normal things like vote and get an education. The inequality women face is often seen affecting a girl by a every early age. A lot of people would rather have a boy than a girl because of all the problems women face. I liked the fact that you mention different aspects of where a women is seen as “other”. The gender wage gap is a very underrated topic in politics but is very relevant to all women. Whether it’s a women in an office job, the U.S women soccer team or a famous actress these women have constantly been treated and paid less than males in their profession.