Response to Aliza's Blog

I had known a little bit about the idea of women’s suffrage and how long the battle for it was, but I did not know of many of the other rights women were fighting for. Mainly they were fighting for equality in the workplace. It is interesting to me that women experienced these issues because usually it is a minority that either gets paid less or is less likely to be hired, but obviously women represent about 50% of the population. One of the main reason women received more jobs was because the men went off to fight in World War II, so the women were forced to work. They were not given work because people realized it was right, they were given work out of necessity. The women did not gain rights because of all the fighting they did not get these rights, but rather because American businesses had no other option. I’m not sure if this is even a victory that would have been celebrated by women because they were still not viewed as equal as they lost their jobs when the men returned. It wasn’t until legislation that was later passed that forced equality of the sexes in the workplace and in paychecks, but even then men found loopholes to pay women less. Aliza’s blog says that women are paid 23 cents less than men to the dollar even for equal jobs. To me this idea sounds ridiculous in today’s world as women are becoming CEO’s of companies and have equal roles as men in the workplace. I am not surprised that this would have happened years ago, but in today’s modern world I find it crazy that there still needs to be new legislation from Obama to ensure equal pay. One of the most interesting points Aliza made was that there won’t be true equality until “the father is staying home, and the woman is going off to work.” I have heard cases of this occurring but my own prejudices make it seem weird to me that this would happen, but Aliza’s point is extremely valid. Until people see Women and Men working in the same fields and there are as many stay at home dads as there are stay at home moms then there won’t be true equality in the workplace. The media is also at fault for some of this as TV shows, movies, and magazines portray women as objects of men and never the other way around. I think for Women to be totally equal they also have to give up some of the things they are accustomed to. Why is it that a man is expected to pay on a date? I think ideas like this will take a very long time to change, so total equality is far away.