Dear future President of the United States of America,

All throughout history, there have been debates about the rights of a high diversity of people, be it black or female rights. I’d like to go ahead and look at those rights of females in my country, our country, the USA. But I, as a student, would like to take one step farther, and also look at female’s rights as a whole, rather than exclusively comparing females’ rights to men. Sure, yes, females are treated highly different than men, but they are still treated different when it comes to the overall judgement of the gender.

I’ve noticed recently that television programs, those we consider designed for children, have been taking a more serious path. The creators have been trying to slip past the publishers to put in aspects that most parents will normally not cover with their children. Take, for instance, the Disney Channel show, Gravity Falls. The creator of the show, Alex Hirsch, wanted to include an elderly couple in the background for just a few seconds. Problem is, this couple was two women. Disney found this out, and made Hirsch cut this couple from the episode. The couple wasn’t even talking, and they still had to be cut from the final production, just for the fear this might negatively influence the youth that may be viewing the episode, which it would not. Children should be taught and given these examples, so they feel comfortable seeing this in real life. Take, on the other hand, Cartoon Network. Recently, they aired an episode of We Bare Bears (created by Daniel Chong), featuring a Muslim woman wearing a hijab. From the images I have seen, the woman is in the center of the screen. I don’t know how long she was featured for, but Cartoon Network let this slide, allowing children and others to see this. Children today need to be properly exposed to different types of women, and not just the stereotypical straight and white women, and television broadcasters need to be brave and actually air these shows.

That being said, those who are straight white women should not be discriminated against either. All women should be viewed as equals. Women in general are paid 80 cents to a man’s dollar. Some would be surprised to know just that statistic exists. While reading up on an article online about the pay issue once I heard about this, and I found a few interesting facts that may surprise you. What if I were to tell you that African-American women are paid 64 cents to the men’s dollar, and Latina women 56 cents? Surprising, right? Just because of a woman’s family heritage or skin color, she is payed less than average. Now, that is just plain wrong.

You know what else is wrong? There are some women out there who have been abused, either mentally, physically, or sexually, and we don’t even know about all of the cases. None is more severe than the other, they are all abuse, and should not be judged with the typical “Well, it doesn’t seem as bad as….”

With the amount of reported cases, it can be found within a few simple Google searches, nearly ⅓ of American women have been or are being abused each year. Those who are abused should not be viewed as monsters; they couldn’t control the situation. There are also some women out there who have been abused and haven’t came out about it. One of the reasons those women have not come out about it could be fear. Fear that if they said anything they will be hurt again, by others or the one who has hurt them already; fear that everyone will say that they are an awful person for having not said anything sooner; and fear, they won’t be accepted by others. If you were to know a close member of your family to have been abused, you wouldn’t do that to them, would you?

I believe most of these prejudices materialized in the past, when women were viewed as a lower status, and continued on to the present day. Experts that study this topic do not have a proper explanation as to why gender inequality exists. If there is no reason we can find for the inequality, why does it exist? Some would say that gender inequality is the biggest puzzle of the modern day. It is hard to find a source of the problem of gender inequality. As said in an article titled "Down So Long," “if no significant inherent differences distinguish women from men and if we are doing our best to get rid of the practices that used to enforce the lower status of women, why doesn't equality bloom?”

In all, Mister or Madam President, females as a whole are treated differently, and even more when it comes to comparing with men. All I, and those supporting this cause, would really like is to be viewed as equals. I’d like you to think this over the next time you go to speak on these topics, which you hopefully do. Although I can find no good way to solve our equality problems (the world has been trying for decades), I’d like you to think about this. Think about the different types of females across the world and in the USA. Think about how if we had a less judgmental world, this would change. The best, and what seems to be the only way, is to go back to the beginning of man, and keep the genders equal, but, of course, this is, and will never be, possible to achieve.

Thank you for considering a solution as much as is possible,

Khylea P., Pennsylvania