Today’s political landscape is much more diverse and complicated than it was even 50 years ago. Still, even though there are some great achievements in terms of equalizing women’s rights and providing more opportunities for women to be represented in government on all levels, the fight is still not over. The current times create even more challenges and difficulties than we could expect. Thus, focusing on providing women politicians with support is as important as ever before.
In today’s world, it is not now impossible for a woman candidate to become a President or be elected for any other major position in the government. Still, there are too many women’s issues that remain unaddressed by current governments and thus require decisive and persistent political figures to stand up for women’s rights.
The future of women’s equality is uncertain. Like a player placing a bet on his favorite team or a gambler spinning a slot reel at an online casino, we don’t know what will happen, but we hope for the best. Who can know what women need better than other women?
The Main Challenges to Deal with
US politics are difficult and involve multilevel institutions, branches of government, areas of interest and key figures. The issue is that in most cases, politicians, on their pace for electoral gaining, use real social and economic issues as slogans and forget about them as soon as they’re elected, letting millions of people down. This directly affects women’s rights and the overall condition of women in the country.
We, as a platform of young women politicians and social activists, set our goal to make women equal with other social groups and provide women with all the opportunities and resources they require for prosperity. Here is the list of main challenges we consider the most important areas of improvement in our society.
Inequality in Basic Rights
Women are still oppressed in some of their rights, including, for instance, the widely discussed right to abortion. Nevertheless, this isn’t the only right where women are currently limited to deciding when it comes to their life, health, and body – even in the US Constitution, the rights of women and girls aren’t directly mentioned and thus aren’t protected!
The same applies to women’s right to share some types of content. The US legislation is still considering some types of content related to women’s bodies as inappropriate, thus making it illegal to share, which directly affects the basic right of free speech.
Let us put aside such awful facts as the legal status of child marriage, which is still possible in more than half of the states – with small limitations from one to another. The US legislation in nine states and the District of Columbia also doesn’t prohibit FCM (Female Genital Mutilation).
Inequality in Salary and Social Security
This is not something new that women in the US are paid less than men – and this is the situation where inequality directly hurts the quality of life and basic living standards of all American women. According to data provided by Forbes, women earn 16% less on average than men, making only 84 cents for every dollar earned by males.
The situation is also bad when it comes to maternity leaves – many employers often just don’t want to take risks and hire women who can be more appropriate candidates for the position just to avoid all the costs of potential maternity leave. This isn’t effectively regulated on the federal level, and only a few states provide progressive regulations for these issues, putting women in an oppressed position compared to men, which also hurts basic human rights, such as the right to receive fair rewards for their work.
Security Problems and Crimes
The US has recognized crimes against women as a social health concern, yet very few effective solutions and measures have been taken to resolve the root problem. Women in the US suffer from numerous awful crimes, including rape, sexual assault, sex trafficking, domestic abuse, murder, and so on. This is not only an issue of legislation but also an issue of culture and a lack of awareness of women’s concerns.
After dozens of years of sexual objectification and victimization, our society has done nothing to protect women from the crimes that sometimes are considered even “normal” by some groups of people, thus making the life of women even more difficult and dangerous than it already was.
Inequality in Representation in Government Institutions
Even though the situation with this issue is slightly better than with the previous two, we still have to do more. As for 2024, men are still making up three-quarters of the senators, more than 70% of Congress members, and almost 70% of municipal officeholders, and the same is true for state legislators.
This means that the situation is still bad, as women are critically underrepresented in the US government structures than men – and we didn’t even mention how things go in the army or police! This is also the main reason why we empower you to support young women politicians who need your assistance to be listened to and to become those who will make the lives of women better – here and now.
The Steps Needed to Overcome
Our appeal to you is simple – do what you can do to support womenforpoliticalchange.com. Share information about our events, support the women candidates, discuss women’s problems with your acquaintances and just don’t be unconcerned – we need you to make the dream come true.