Essay Sample about Gender Equality

📌Category: Gender Equality, Social Issues
📌Words: 623
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 10 February 2022

The second wave of the women’s movement had just arrived onshore in 1960. Women all across the world began a campaign for equal rights and personal freedom for women. The Seneca Falls woman’s rights conference, which took place in 1848, marked the start of the American women’s rights movement. 

Women’s lives in industrialized countries changed considerably in the aftermath of WWII. Household technology made housework easier, life expectancies soared, and the rise of the service sector created thousands of occupations that were not physically demanding. Despite these economical changes, cultural views (particularly towards women’s jobs) and social norms persist.

For this project, I decided to interview my grandmother, Jacqueline Buford. She was around my age when she attended high school. At the time school dress code was very strict. Men had to wear a polo with pants and women had to wear a dress or a skirt. For women, these clothing items were very hard to move around which made them uncomfortable. “ I remember getting yelled at school for wearing my brand new khaki pants at school. My teacher said that I wasn't being ladylike and needed to go home and change”. I couldn't imagine not being able to wear pants at school for me that would be a tragedy.

Mrs.Buford was at home watching tv on August 26, 1970, when she saw the Women’s Strike for Peace and Equality. To remind you this was 50 years after the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. 50,000 feminists paraded down New York City’s Fifth Avenue with linked arms, blocking the major thoroughfare during rush hour. Now, 45 years later, the legacy of that day continues to evolve. 

This strike highlighted that men were running everything from schools to the country. “ I felt so horrible that women still had to fight for rights and that we would still have to in the future. This helped me realize that this was what it was like in the real world. Women were walking through the streets with signs saying things like, “Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot” and “Don’t Cook Dinner – Starve a Rat Today.”

“To think that women want to copy or be like men wasn’t the issue,” Jacqueline explained, “We just wanted to be treated honestly and equally. I was a youngster in the late 1960s and early 1970s when I decided to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study political science to become a lawyer to address the injustices that women and people faced”. Being a female lawyer was harder at the time than now because if you had children you needed to pay. For child-care and juggling parenting with work is very hard to do.

My grandma was working at the time and was a college student with a baby (my dad). She needed money to raise him and childcare for when she was at work. But work was hard at the time because everything was powered by men. 

She was concerned not only with women's liberation but also with black emancipation. For example, women of color were fighting racial injustices in addition to fighting for independence and oppression. Unfair responsibilities for women, such as leadership ones, was an intriguing tidbit my grandmother shared with me. Even those women who were battling these injustices were subjected to discrimination in the liberation movement.

Sadly the fight for gender equality still continues today the glass ceiling that men have broken through but women continue to fight to do so. The “pay” isn’t the same, and neither is the way people are treated. Now we are talking more of a stand than before. Many other movements such as the “Me Too” movement and The female soccer players fight for the same salary for the same job has impacted us all to make the world fair and a better place. “This impacted my life because not only do I have my dream job but also i have proven to myself that I can do the same things a man can do while maintaining equality."

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