Women: A Less Than Perfect Reality

She feels the arms wrap around her waist the same way they do every day. She just sighs and lets him pull her closer. She learned early on that resistance wouldn't work; it would only make him angry. He pulls her closer, and places his face next to hers and she resists all those natural impulses of the body that scream “to close, too close!” He's not her boyfriend, he's not her family. He's nothing to her. He's just the boy that's been taught that women are just objects for him to treat as he wishes. She is subject to the cat calls, the touches, the stares of men everyday, and no one seams to notice the pain it causes her.

         The women who work those low paying jobs, cleaning, doing clerical work, preforming unskilled labor are of no concern to anyone. Their employers don't care if they must forsake spending time with young children because they can't take maternity leave, unpaid leave, sick leave or ask for different hours; to do so could very well cost them their jobs. And what if they quit so that they could tend to their family? The only rewards they'll receive from society are ridicule for 'being lazy,' thousands of dollars in wages lost, and no financial stability or social insurance. Even if they do work, they won't make as much as their male coworkers, but to their employers none of this matters.   

         A police officer stands over a dead body, observing it with little interest. The victim is a young female, covered in bruises that had just barely begun to heal before her head was smashed in with a baseball bat. It's a scene the officer has seen far too often. In his short time on the force he's seen more dead women then anything else. And more often then not it was at the hands of an abusive partner or as the result of rape.

         As a country that likes to boast about being a land of equality, opportunity, and progress, the U.S.A is failing at living up to all that it claims. Men are prepared and encouraged to enter into high paying successful careers, while most women can only attain low wage jobs with few opportunities for advancement or a secure living. Simple legislative actions, such as the initiation of pay equity laws could help, but such laws are not being enacted. Sexual harassment, which can come in many forms from unwanted touches to unwanted comments, happens everyday and the perpetrators often go unpunished. Their behavior is brushed off as acts of little consequence. Everyday the media bombards the public with images of violence against women in the form of adds, movies, and video games. It's gotten so prevalent and desensitizing that this violence is being brought into reality everyday.

         Social change is a slow process that requires deliberate and thoughtful action. Women in America are faced with numerous difficulties and disadvantages every day for no other reason then the fact that they were born a certain sex. While there are many groups working to create legislation that would bring about positive changes in the lives of women the deeper problem is found within society itself and the beliefs and teachings that are so deeply indoctrinated within it. Only by changing the way that our culture thinks about women can deep, long lasting changes be really made.