Gender Inequality In the Government and Law In terms of social geography, humankind has come a long way from its roots. Since the beginning of time, males were selected by default to be the dominant gender, but the empowerment of women signifies the first movement of society where the “natural” order of things are questioned. By examining modern government and law, one can easily see that although we have just recently started eliminating social prejudice between males and females, women have not yet found equality.
In 1776, fifty-six delegates signed the single most demonstrating piece of paper. Yet, despite this major impact that this document made upon united States of America, the Declaration of Independence was still gendered, which ultimately crusaded the biased attitudes towards females in the latter years. An example of how the Declaration of Independence Is gendered Is the language It uses only applied to males. For example, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, the all men are created equal… ” This is obviously gendered in the fact that the document does not specifically Include women.
The Declaration of Independence declared freedom for any humans, it did not specifically include women, but rather only included males in the equation. In 1848, a group of people (mostly females), first challenged this flaw. Although It was never ratified, the “Equal Rights Amendment” of 1848 pushed for the Constitution to include “equality of rights… Shall not be denied or abridged by United States on account of sex”. It wasn’t until 1971, that the Supreme Court finally declared any law discriminating against women was unconstitutional.
Among citizen obligations, taxation is one that has been very controversial throughout many decades. “No Taxation Without Representation”. One of the most famous slogans originated during the 1 sass Illustrated the upset of British colonists in the thirteen colonies against government greed. This slogan can clearly be applied to the taxation problem with women. If women are unequally represented, why should they be taxed the same? “Taxation without Representation is tyranny'”. This quote is an example of how women were oppressed with the unequal treatment regarding taxation.
Title IX was a government sponsored law that was established in 1972 that aimed to prohibit any kind of discrimination of sex In education, athletics, and extracurricular activities in schools. Title IX can be considered one of the most successful Acts in modern time. Just by taking a look at the statistics, one can see its dramatic effects It really made. Prior to Title IX, the number of females In sports were 310,000 students. After Title IX the rate of women who were involved in sports was a staggering 3,373,000 students.
A 900% increase in students exemplify the melodramatic effects that Title XSL made to schools as well as the Inequality that existed prior to this law. The 19th and 20th century was probably the single greatest period of eliminating property after most states passed the “Married Women’s Property Acts”; however, story books and historians seem to never mention this historical touchstone. The significance women having the right to own property is great because it finally means they also have other basic rights that go along with owning property.
In the late 19th century, women could only vote in some states and it wasn’t until 1920 that the 19th Amendment gave full power to the suffrage of women. In 1963 the Equal Pay Act pushed for equal pay between men and women doing the same Job. In 1978, Title VIII included the Pregnancy Discrimination Act which made it illegal to discriminate against pregnant women in the workforce. Despite these significant acts and laws, women were still unequally represented in the courtroom and it wasn’t until Just recently women are starting to gain equal status to men in regards to Jury duty.
Prior to 1949, women were subjective to absolute exclusion to serve as a Juror due to “domestic obligations”. However, in 1949, the Supreme Court claimed that women could volunteer to serve as a Juror; however, rarely anyone ever volunteered to serve, so there were pretty much never any women in the courtroom serving as a Juror as opposed to men, who were drafted. Hoyt vs. Florida was the first court case in which questioned the genders of the Jury as an issue in the courtroom. Hoyt was sentenced for second degree murder, but she claimed that the all male Jury led to “unfair circumstances and discrimination”.
In 1986, the Supreme Court decided that Jurors cannot be selected on the basis of race, and in 1994, the Supreme Court declared that “We hold that gender, like race, is an unconstitutional proxy for Juror competence and impartiality. ” Just like Jury duty, women’s exclusion from the draft for military is tied with the over-generalization that a woman’s obligation is one that must lie at home and in the family life. Most of American history was shown by women being excluded from the military because of the wrongful idea that “gender capacity’ limits a woman’s ability to serve in the military.
Although women cannot be physically apt to perform the same tasks as males, they should receive equal recognition for serving in the military in doing other works; such as, nursing, logistics, and commanding. Although the Supreme Court in 1981 Roster vs.. Goldberg) denied the requirement to have women sign up for the draft, the proportion of women in the military continued to increase. Regarding homosexuals, DADA is a United States policy that allowed gays and Sabine in the military. It was enacted in 1994 and recently ended in 2011. Although it ended in 2011, the United States still allows gays and lesbians to serve.
Before DADA, homosexuals would be immediately discharged from the military simply because of their sexual orientations. This is obviously unfair because a persons’ sexual orientation has no correlation with militaristic performance. Personally, I agree with the DADA policy because it does not harm anyone. Although some people may argue that presence of gay males being in close quarters to other males in the military may slur performance, I think the old policy of DADA clearly elves this because nobody would know if you Don’t Ask, and Don’t Tell.
Even though the official policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was ended in December of 2011, homosexuals are still allowed to serve in the military. In fact, homosexuals can reveal this is a problem but some people may argue that if they know somebody is homosexual in a close quarter, their performance may be disturbed due to mental perturbation. Regarding the Justice system, the amount of ratio of women and men serving in the Justice system is high. We can examine the major movements of women in the lustier system. In 1845, the first appearance of women in the police force was when Omen began to serve as matrons in New York City.
In 1893, the first “policeman” Oman was granted the power to arrest in Chicago. Today, women constitute about 13% of sworn law enforcement. Of those 13%, less than 5% are women of color. The staggering difference between women and men in the police force poses the question of why this fluctuation is present. Although women are clearly less physically dominant than males, the work of policing does not necessarily require physicality for everything. Things like logistics, planning and resources are all sections in law enforcement that women can fulfill.
However, the number of women n law enforcement is still substantially lower than males. Researches show that Omen are less likely to use force and more likely to use other forms of communications to achieve the same thing as opposed to males and women also respond faster to domestic disturbance cases than males. So obviously, having females in the police force can actually increase productivity and versatility. So why is the number of males and females in law enforcement so different? This is obviously due to society creating “gendered” images for Jobs and other roles.
Some statistics to consider is that only 29% of lawyers are females are women, but about 50% of law school students are female now. It is obvious that although the numerical gap between males and females in the workforce is closing, there is still a disparity. According to “The Guardian”, a newspaper press, the Justice system is “a sexist operation that… Prevents women professionals reaching top Jobs”. An example of this metaphor being applied outside of the Justice system would be in the Fortune 500 anomaly. Only 9% of the Fortune 500 CEO are females. Why is it that there are so title women in high status Job positions in America?
The answer can again be reflected to the gendered practices that humans keep following; the domestic and natural’ role of things. It can now be clear that we have come along way from our social past. However, society still hones gendered practices and ideals in which ultimately becomes the fuel for gender inequality. If humans want to eliminate this social injustice, one must first recognize flaws within society; such as, in this case, government and law. With that, we can take these lessons learned and use them in order to push for a revolution against tradition.
