The Situation for Women - United States

The situation for women in the United States has changed drastically in last 100 years. From women's suffrage to the civil rights act of 1964, changes have occurred that have shaped all of our lives. More women hold positions of power in politics than ever before, and more women hold clout positions in business than we have seen in our recent history. Women have fought for these roles in a patriarchal capitalistic system that was built on the exploitation of them and other minorities. In that respect, we have come quite a ways. Woman are allowed to do the same things men do, and thus we have more social equality than we have ever had before. However, in a system that is built and thrives on social inequality and exploitation of workers, minorities and the poor I wonder how equal we all truly are, or ever will be. A handful of female senators, governors and CEO’s certainly provides an agreeable illusion of progress, yet the powerful media and entertainment industry that most people culturally identify with remain largely more influential than anything else.

I will not deny or downplay the amazing tenacity of the courages women that worked tirelessly so that other women could have access to birth control, the choice to decide whether or not to carry a child, and to have the right to vote, be educated and successful, however there has been a somewhat slower cultural shift in the way we see ourselves and measure our self worth. The backlash against the feminist movement has spawned both the conservative movement and the wildly uninhibited, exploitative media that serves to undermine women's credibility outside of the home and the bedroom. The media and the entertainment industry, which is largely run by men, perpetuates many unrealistic and untrue versions of females and to a lesser degree, males. There are many examples of the medias influence on women; the rise in eating disorders, an escalating number of plastic surgeries and the number of women diagnosed with clinical depression. I believe that the toughest hurdle women have to face is the fight against a culture that chooses to exploit our sexuality for financial gain. Selling women the “beauty myth”, we are made to feel inferior and worthless unless we try extremely hard to fit an unattainable standard of “sexy” and we become preoccupied with trivial notions of looks that equate our self worth. Men don’t seem to have these problems, as women are doing these things supposedly for men. I truly believe that if women are ever to feel equal, we must rid ourselves of this notion that we have to fit a standard model of acceptable beauty and that this is what defines our worth as humans, and that men must also begin to see women not a commodity to be purchased but as real human beings (men should be fighting against an industry that belittles them and assumes they are superficial sexual predators). These ideologies do exists, and have for some time, in micro-cultures