Social Change of Women’s Rights, Research Paper Example

Social change affects women’s rights on different levels: political, business and non-governmental. The below study is designed to reveal how different players of the society and those who have an influence on social change are able to tackle gender inequality around the world, and in America. While the historical background of women’s rights also need to be reviewed before the analysis of the current situation is completed, the authors would like to focus on the most challenging issues of gender inequality in contemporary times.

Historical Background

Cantarow et al. successfully summarized the events that led to the development of ideologies calling for social change and the empowering of women through promoting equality and rights. One of the most notable events is the Suffrage movement started in the 19^th Century that called for votes for women in America. Further, women were asking for property rights, the amendment of the U.S. Constitution to include basic rights for women. By the time Florence Luscomb joined the movement in the beginning of the 20^th Century, the goals changed, but the determination of members remained the same. By this time, there were many well-educated, intelligent and independent women signed up as members, who collaborated with their sisters in Britain. By 1920, women were given the right to vote.

In the 1920-s, the fight continued with political rights enhancement and workers’ rights. While during the Great Depression in the 30-s America, the activists of the movement worked alongside other political and worker organizations, they soon started collaboration with unions and organization.

The Seneca Fall Convention (Saylor 3) and the issue of the Declaration of Sentiments brought basic political rights, but the work is not done yet. Today, there are several women’s organization on the international level, as well as focused on the United States, however, the goals are the same as they were in the beginning of the 20^th Century. Women are looking for enhanced equality, participation and influence in the society.

In 1963, the Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, making sure that companies cannot pay less for women than men for the same job. That said, some authors argue that companies are able to go around this rule and women’s salaries are still lower, due to their time off for childcare and different career paths. This action was later enhanced by President Barack Obama, who introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, allowing women to recover their lost wages based on the discriminative pay schedules of companies. Similarly, in 2012 women earned only 82 percent of men’s salary on average, and in 2013, only 24 percent of legislative seats in the Congress were held by women.

Women’s rights are still not fully equal to men’s, as the course has revealed, and this inequality makes life harder for millions. Social change is not only about ideology and principles: it affects lives of current and future generations.

The Emergence of Women’s Rights

Saylor (3) concludes that the focus of social change initiatives for women’s rights is currently changing. Growing out of the domestic ideology, which was the belief of the society for many centuries, there are new initiatives emerging. The question is no longer whether women should stay at home, live a reserved life and look after the household, children. This question is settled, and there are some professions where women are already in majority, such as teaching, administration. The leadership development of women, however, and the inequality of representation in corporate and government as decision-makers is still present. While governments are introducing initiatives to increase the number of women who are in the Congress, considering that around half of the population is female, the numbers are still far from being fair. Women’s rights do appear in media from time to time, the United Nations and international organizations introduce recommendations, still very little seems to be done.

Today’s issues of Women’s rights include empowerment, education, human trafficking, sexualization, and representation in leadership. According to Concerns Online (4) the solution of the future lies in empowering women. The report created by the organizations associated with reviewing the situation of women around the world concludes that education greatly improves women’s rights, because through it, women can access better paid jobs, health care and information, becoming able to eliminate risks of poverty.

Achieving social justice for women has several challenges in the 21^st Century, according to Phillips (168). While the formal equality in law, culture, work and representation is provided by the legal system, statistical data shows that the principles are not creating the results the initiatives are aiming for. Informal and indirect discrimination still exists in the American society, which can only be eliminated by education, change of vision and values.

According to Grown, women today need the following rights and guarantees in order to increase their opportunities on the economic, work and social scale. The below are the actual seven priority goals set by the Millennium Development project to be achieved by 2015. (Grown 4 Box 7)

1. strengthening education opportunities for girls beyond primary level
2. guarantee of sexual and reproductive health rights of women
3. reducing time burdens
4. guarantee of inheritance and property rights
5. tackling employment gender inequality
6. increase of political representation
7. reducing violence against women and girls

Some of the above international initiatives are more relevant to the U.S. society than others. For example, the property and inheritance rights of women in America are guaranteed by the Constitution, however, political representation of women is often criticized by researchers and organizations for women’s rights. Violence against women is also embedded into human culture across the world, unfortunately, while it is definitely more prevalent in the “Global East”. The U.S. Government also focuses on enhancing policies related to women’s reproductive health provisions and rights for decision, information and adequate treatment.

Government and International Initiatives for Social Change

Article 3 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (International Women’s Rights Action Watch 23) calls for equality between men and women in rights to enjoy economic, social and cultural benefits. Still, the organization also acknowledges that there are some boundaries formed in prejudices of societies, which prevent the full application of the article. This article also relates to the elimination of gender-based prejudice and assumptions, which is hard to control. Changing people’s thinking cannot be completed in just a few years, and requires negotiation, skillful communication techniques.

A White House Council on Women and Girls is established based on the executive order of the President. The initiative reflects the words of President Barack Obama, who said:

“”With passion and courage, women have taught us that when we band together to advocate for our highest ideals, we can advance our common well-being and strengthen the fabric of our nation.” (Civil Rights Government Site)

The council is established in order to work across different state departments and agencies within the United States to ensure that women’s rights are embedded into federal policies. It creates research and provides recommendations for decision-makers for implementing changes and new policies.

The United Kingdom has several initiatives designed to support equality within the American society. These should be serving as a positive example for U. S. policymakers. The policy for Creating a Fairer and More Equal Society was designed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, as well as the Government Equalities Office. The last update on the Government website is dated the 30^th of April, this year. It does not only relate to policies in the public sector, but also calls for participation from businesses as well through the initiative called “Think, Act, Report”. The initiative encourages businesses to identify, take action on and report gender inequality within the organization.

Business Initiatives for Gender Equality

The Gender Equality Principles Initiative (web) is a collaboration between public and private organizations to promote a fairer society for women. It is supported by the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women, Calvert Group Ltd and Verite. It is a great example of collaboration between state agencies, private companies and researchers in order to develop a framework for implementing changes into policies regarding gender equality. The constant collaboration between parties and the conferences, publications reveal that the committed members of the initiative take the issues (they currently address seven of these, related to women’s inequality) seriously and are actively seeking solutions.

Further, there is a growing number of companies committing to implementing gender equality policies and initiatives into their policies. One of these multinational firms is Ernst&Young, As the company has a great influence on how large corporations conduct business, their recommendations, research related to economic benefits of employing female leaders create a substantial impact on the business world. The company is also committed to empowering women entrepreneurs to make the most out of their ideas, and there are several schemes designed for female executives, experts and leaders to identify and support high-potential women in business.

Feigenbaum (n.d.) confirms the most important challenges associated with gender equality in business environments. Discrimination can occur at the hiring phase, and as it is hard to find out why one applicant was not accepted for the position, this is a case too hard to prove most of the time. While the Equal Pay Act of 1960 is still in place and is being enforced by the federal government, there are still inequalities. Today, legislators are looking into the possibility of making businesses produce documentation on hiring to reason why a woman was not hired when facing a court case. However, not all women who experience discrimination during the application process will go to court. The completion of gender and ethnicity information sheet is not required in the initial phase in most cases, however, one’s gender can easily be guessed by the CV or the name.

Another important area of gender inequality policy-makers and non-profit organizations are fighting for alongside with businesses is sexual harassment. Women have the same right to balanced, safe and healthy workplaces as men, therefore, there is a need for implementing training for human resources staff to be able to identify, deal with and eliminate cases of sexual harassment, which can not only affect women’s emotional health, but their career, well-being and health as well.

As equal pay policies are becoming more common, and these use pay brackets determining the salary for different roles throughout one’s career. This (at least on paper) excludes the possibility of a female marketing manager with three years experience earning less than a male executive, performing the same job. Still, there is a question of promotion and career development opportunities that affects people’s pay within the business sector. Empowering women to take charge and grab career progression opportunities as much as men is a successful approach of leadership development programs within companies.

Arguably, pregnancy and its impact on one’s final pay, salary is an issue that is hard to be addressed by companies. While the federal government protects the status of pregnancy, therefore, a pregnant woman cannot be terminated, harassed or disciplined based on their condition. However, the reason for termination, again, is hard to determine, as well as the reasons behind hiring and promotion decisions. Further, women are losing out on experience and career progression opportunities because of their time taken off during the pregnancy, and while there are initiatives to make companies create a compensation policy for the time and opportunity lost, this is a problem that (among others) results in women earning overall 82 percent of men’s wages in America.

Nonprofit Organizations and Social Change

The Global Fund for Women has several initiatives to deal with gender inequality in education, health and leadership development. Interestingly, the organization’s website reveals that only 7.3 percent of the total private funding is allocated for programs that deal with women’s rights’ enhancement. The organization’s vision is to promote gender equality and social change. Focusing on international projects, the leaders also note that there is a great difference between the “Global North” and “Global South” when it comes to rights and opportunities of women.

The American Civil Liberties Union started a Women’s Rights and the Human Rights Program back in 2010, to address some of the challenges of gender discrimination women have to face. The organization uses legislative and policy approaches to ensure that the “Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other international regulations are adhered to, and women can preserve their dignity in every situation. The organization also deals with issues like immigrant women’s low wages and gender-based violence, including human trafficking. The organization is also engaging in conversation and collaboration with the U.S. and the U. N. to create policies together that protect women.

One of the main ambassadors of women’s rights in America is former State Secretary, Hillary Clinton. She organizes collaboration among companies, researchers, government agencies and NGO-s to work together on creating policies that protect women from discrimination and girls from neglect. In one of her famous speeches, she said: “Women’s rights are Human Rights”. Her aim on the 4^th World Conference on Women within the United Nations in China, back in 1995 was “to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard.” (Clinton)

It is clearly visible that there are several legislative orders in the United States that focus on equal pay, anti-discrimination and gender equality regulation. While politicians (the majority of them) sit in the Senate thinking that America is going into the right direction, there are still issues in the American society to be tackled. Still, most organizations focus on international affairs, United Nations agreements, while only a few of them work alongside the federal government to make the United States a fairer place to live in for women.

Ford Foundation’s work involves fighting for social change, including equal rights for women. It operates as a private foundation. Focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice, the foundation supports and finances different projects to advance research of sexuality, protect women’s rights, as well as women’s reproductive health. Through building effective international and national networks, the foundation is establishing a community of women who are able to fight against gender discrimination and inequality together. Further, apart from funding, the foundation supports research that is presented to policymakers to implement social change and create a greater extent of justice.

The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College details some initiatives regarding gender inequality, already mentioned above. The work of the institute involves researching ways of women’s economic development through education and empowerment programs. It provides essential information and research background for policymakers and legislators to successfully identify and address issues related to gender discrimination and inequality.

Conclusion

The above research has revealed that there are several international and American initiatives at the present to create a better world for women and guarantee equality. However, it has also been concluded that there are several policies that work well on paper, but the society is unable to adapt them. Targets to reduce violence against women can only be achieved through collaboration among government, non-profit organizations, as well as companies.

The authors also assume that while an increasing amount of money is spent on research and programs on the local and international level to promote gender equality, there are still too many problems to tackle. Without enhanced collaboration and the coordination of policy-making, legislation, international provisions, there is no real chance for success on the field.

Women’s voices are hard to be heard in the male-oriented society. Movies use women to create stereotypes, and books do not give them justice, either. The way forward is, therefore, taking responsibility for education, empowering women in order to help them be heard, noticed, appreciated and valued. This collaboration should be based on an agreement of the nation, or there will be no social change. Politicians, therefore, have an increased responsibility to deal with challenges, seek out for NGO and business support to eliminate gender inequalities in the society. Showing a positive example is important, and all women have to work together to create a form of equality than does not only benefit women, but the nation or global world as one.

The main challenges of the 21^st Century regarding women’s rights and social change is to successfully communicate the benefits of equality towards the society and leading the change through positive examples. A business adapting equal opportunities internal policies is able to prove other companies that the method is not only creating a fairer society, but benefits the firm financially. A non-profit organization can create programs for potential entrepreneurs who will create tax income for the government in the future. Governments can make legislation fairer for women, increase the percentage of women in the Congress, benefiting from a greater level of diversity in views, efficiency, while the adaptation of gender policies would also be made easier and more effective, as women would understand the problem better.

As it has been stated several times in the paper, the best conclusion of findings is: “collaboration is the right way towards gender equality and a fairer society through social change”.

Works Cited

Cantarow, W., O’Malley, S., Hartman Strom, S., Luscomb, F.,Baker, W., De La Cruz, J. (1980) Moving the Mountain: Women Working for Social Change. Feminist Press. Print.

Clinton, H. (1995) Remarks to the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session. American Rhetoric. Top 100 Speeches. Web.

Concern Worldwide. (n. d.) How Can We Ensure That All Women Have Equal Access To Their Rights? Web.

Creating a Fairer And More Equal Society. Gov.uk website. Web.

Feingembaum, E. (n.d.) Gender Equality Policies. Web.

Ford Foundation Website. Initiatives. Web.

Gender Equality Principles Initiative. Web.

Global Fund for Women. (n.d.). Fostering Social Change Philanthropy. Web.

Grown, K. (2006) Quick Impact Initiatives For Gender Equality: A Menu of Options. Working Paper No. 462. Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Web.

International Women’s Rights Action Watch. (2004) Equality and Women’s Economic, Social And Cultural Rights. A Guide to Implementation and Monitoring Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Web. Office of Civil Rights U.S. Website. Web.

Saylor Website. (n.d.) Women’s Sphere and the Emergence of the Women’s Rights Movement. Subunit 6.1 Web.