Auris de Overbrook

"Thus in the United States the inexorable opinion of the public carefully circumscribes woman within the narrow circle of domestic interests and duties and forbids her to step beyond it." - Alexis de Tocqueville 

Introduction 

In the US, society hasn’t done enough to allow women equal opportunities. In order to change the status of women, the nation has to be willing to overcome countless obstacles that stand in the way of women feeling they are being used and taken advantage of. Humanity should improve in dealing with issues that disrupt national peace and have a harmful impact on people.

An issue that has been going on for centuries is the repetition of advocating for rights, especially coming from women. However, it’s not just rights that women have been advocating for. For years, women have been pushing for issues they care about and yet are still being ignored. Society believes the phrase equal rights comes from a large group of women with similar needs and experiences advocating for the same purposes, but in fact, that is not true. 

For instance, Politico, a political newspaper company, states “From a global perspective, one of the biggest challenges facing women is educational inequality… While there is no denying that poverty, geography, and other factors contribute to huge disparities in education, patriarchy justifies this denial of opportunity. It feeds the message that men should wield the power and women should occupy a subordinate position in all areas of society...” Scattered around the US, there are women who are from all over the world. Those women grow up with different ideals and religions that they abide by and carry out distinct lifestyles and have had experiences others have not. Knowing this, it’s not difficult to recognize that it’s impossible for all women to be advocating for the same rights, and to have similar purposes as everyone has towards making a change.

Looking at the difficulties women face in their day-to-day lives, can help bring society a better understanding of what factors affect and impact women. Edith M. Stern was a writer and mental health expert who wrote multiple articles for popular magazines. Stern published an article, “Women Are Household Slaves 1949,” where she discussed the regulations that protected workers' rights in the industry and women’s vulnerability in the home suggesting how union organizing and New Deal alternate motivated politically minded American women to seek to better their own situations. Women in America are seeking change for a better outcome in the future. Knowing what factors to pay attention to, informs society of how to approach changes, how the male gender can be more integrated into the household, and not only women being the standardized picture. Noticeably, there are aspects that a man takes care of outside of the home. Society shouldn’t interpret this as putting more work on men, rather, being considerate and not burdening themselves with more work than they can handle.