A Time to Say, A Time to Act, Essay Example

Abstract

Civil rights legislation has often overlooked the struggles and contributions of women. Partially due to this perspective, gender equalization in the workplace has only recently removed obstacles to the successful application of civil rights. However, it is not a universally accepted goal.

Why did you choose this category and sub-category?

Civil rights are expanding. There has been significant progress made, but society at large seems to underestimate the ground yet to be covered. It is not a matter of male or female; it is a matter of the deficiency of equality. Thus it is crucial to our country to acknowledge and address this deficiency.

Describe a public policy designed to protect the civil liberty or civil right. Do you support or oppose this policy?

The current public policies are mostly “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. Namely, unless a woman sues, the status quo has sufficed for thousands of years, so it is written off at times as a politically-correct necessity.

Summarize a news or journal article that discusses your group or issue. This article must have been published within the last 10 years.

Stackhouse-Hite’s article ‘60s women’s rights movement revisited at PC summed up the “social turbulence” which led to the demand for more civil rights for minorities, women, and humankind in general. This “social turbulence” followed a strictly conservative era in American history, which assumed an unquestioning acceptance of current gender roles. The ingrained gender inequity is poignantly described:

We had to wear dresses or skirts and blouses to school. If the principal, most of whom were men, stopped you in the hall and said get on your knees to see if your skirt touched the floor, you did it.

Stackhouse-Hite also discusses other roots barring women’s move to the workplace: satisfaction and social pressure to be “a pretty little homemaker” and mother (Stackhouse-Hite, 2010).

Instances of burning flags and bras support the assertion of the presence of a demand for change. Jackie Kennedy popularized women in pink suits and pill box hat- bringing the move toward gender equality literally visible. One male college student is polled and expresses an awareness of the basic premise of the Women’s Rights movement- but also expresses an ignorance of the ubiquitous wage gap. This closing point is a solid one: you cannot fix what you do not know.

What did you learn from the article that is not included in the book?

The book tends to focus on cause-and-effect more than the underlying psychology. As I read this news article, I realized that the sheer number of factors involved was more than I had imagined: the Vietnam War, the rebellion against the conservative constraints of the ‘50s, the rise of television, the African American Civil Rights Movement, the gender stereotypes, etc. Books that are developed with the intent of becoming coursework often set the social tone and, consequently, attempt to remain politically correct in an effort to appear more credible. The facts chosen- and not chosen- to represent the issue in course material focus on a wide scale that misses such telling examples as those in her news article.

What strides have individuals or groups in your category made in the past 10 years?

In 2009 a wage-discrimination bill passed. Only two years earlier, an Alabama woman named Lilly Ledbetter challenged the gender gap which affected her wages and retirement, and the Supreme Court ruled in the defendants’ favor, because the statute of limitations had expired. The new bill expanded the reach of the statute of limitations. Again it met with opposition when- a mere 9 months earlier- the wage-discrimination bill narrowly failed (Murray, 2009).

President Barack Obama campaigned with an eye to women’s rights. He expressed an intent to address the issue, and he did.

How have federal court rulings in this area affected public policy?

As stated above, one of the recent rulings of the Supreme Court established the need to take a definitive step toward reducing impediments to the application of gender equality in the work place. The debate went full steam ahead when Susan B. Anthony was tried for “Unlawful voting” in 1873 and was found guilty. The political response at that time was to cite the statement that “all men were created equal” and to overlook the use of “men” as an umbrella word for man-and woman-kind. She was found guilty and fined. She never paid (“The United States”, 1997). In the same year that the Anthony trial’s summation was posted on Gale Resource Center, Virginia Military Institute was ordered by the Supreme Court to remove the restriction of female applicants or lose all federal funding. The Supreme court cited a lack of a parallel, i.e. “separate but equal” program- despite the history of this approach (“United States v., 1997). Still, the tide is turning- but has only recently begun to move past words to action.

Currently, do groups need more or less protection of this right in contemporary American society?

American society needs to demand the equalization of the gap and accept nothing less. It starts with education- the elimination of the male ignorance as demonstrated by Stackhouse-Hite. It has further been demonstrated that the gender equity cannot be established by mandate alone. It must be reinforced by Supreme Court rulings and social revolution.

References

Stackhouse-Hite, A. (2010, March 26). ’60s women’s rights movement revisited at PC. Porterville Recorder, The (CA), Retrieved from Newspaper Source Plus database.

Murray, S. (2009). Fair-wage bill clears the senate. The Washington Post, Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-        dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012201787.html

The United States Vs. Susan B. Anthony: 1873. (1997). Gale, 1st ed., “Women’s rights on trial”. Retrieved (2010, May 27) from          http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/whm/trials/anthony.htm

United States v. Virginia: 1996. (1997). Gale resource center. Retrieved (2010, May 26) from http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/whm/trials/virginia.htm