Elias MonasterskyGreen Group

Feminism essay

Due to the gigantic discriminations that woman have faced, it is quite clear that woman should and must be afforded the legal protection of a minority group. This is due to the lack of any sort of Equal Rights Amendment being passed. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was proposed to give equal rights for women but men and women that were protective of traditional gender roles fought it and stopped the amendment three states short of being ratified. But even though women are treated very similar to other minorities in the work force, they are not offered any sort of helpful action to remedy this problem. Although minorities are still discriminated against, it is important to allow woman and minorities to have the same legal protection as each other. It is also important for them to have the same rights and opportunities as white men, A recent study of 94 Fortune 1000 companies revealed that only 2.6 percent of the surveyed firms' executives were minorities and only 6.6 percent were women (Andre, Velasquez, and Mazur). Even though women represent half of the United States population, they still are discriminated against and that has to change. Phyllis Schlafly played an important part in the opposition of the ERA, she thought that a womans role in life was at home with the husband supporting her. She was also against women in the military and thats what the ERA would have called for. Schlafly also explained that the ERA would take away Social Security benefits for wives and widows (Schlafly). This would have hurt many people that were already struggling. She was extremely against the ERA because it would take away freedoms from women who had lesser rights to begin with, It would also give federal courts and the federal government enormous new powers to reinterpret every law that makes a distinction based on gender, such as those related to marriage, divorce and alimony (Schlafly). It was important for Schlafly to make apparent the glaring downsides of the ERA to the people that were supporting it. Although she did say that it was important for women to stay at home and let the husband support them, she was regarded as a hypocrite because her campaign led her all across the country and turned her into a very influential leader, something that she wished for women not to be because this was against tradition gender roles. Unlike Schlafly, Susan Brownmiller was most likely for the ratification of the ERA. Being a feminist, Brownmiller was probably for the rights that women would gain. She was also probably wanted for women to be seen as equal to men instead of having to rely on them to make the money and support the family. Pornography is not a form of hate speech that is used to keep women in their place because Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits ("Debating the Mighty Constitutional"). Pornography is not made purely to offend, threaten, or insult women because it can also be said the same for men. Pornography is definitely not made to put women in their place as it can be interpreted in many ways, For example, Lady Chatterley's Lover has been considered pornographic in some contexts and good literature in others (Thornburgh and Lin 21). Although things are a lot better now, we are still far from reaching equality. It is still common for men and women to both go for the same job and while the woman may be more fit for it the man will get it. It is also common for men to get paid more than women in the same job. But through the past twenty years, things have gotten much better for women being treated as equals to men. There is true equality in the near future and women will no longer be treated as a minority.