Prue and Allison

Olympia, WA

XX November, 2016

The Next President of the United States

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Next President:

Most women do almost half of the work, worldwide. There is a 20% wage gap between women and men. Since 1990 women still don't have reproductive rights as well as equal pay. In 2015 woman only earned eighty cents for every one dollar of what men earned. People can sometimes think of men as more reliable and stronger and can do a better job than a women can. Most people think that women should just stay home and care for their family and let the men do the labor work.

An approach that people have taken for the past 40 years, was that men and women are so biologically different that equality just couldn’t happen. We raise our children to think that the word women is known as being weak and unintelligent. That the man is the stronger and the more reliable one. We raise our daughters up to think that being a woman is shameful, that we do not deserve respect. A women deserves our respect, and should be taken in as intelligent and strong. That is where Feminism comes in. Feminism does not mean that women hate men, it simply means that a women deserves to be treated equally as a man. That we deserve an education and a well paying job. For example, the modern day feminist movement is trying to increase representation of women in politics and to remove obstacles preventing women from achieving higher office.

These achievements, however, tend to mask an underlying truth, it remains remarkable when a woman fills senior positions of authority and leadership in fields such as politics, business, medicine and academia. The fact that it remains a subject of interest for women to aspire to these positions is evidence that gender differences remain, though women have made progress in some areas. Many people ask, "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights?” Because that would be considered lying. Feminism, of course, is a part of human rights in general to use the simple expression human rights is to argue the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. This comes from how boys are brought up, how their sense of self-worth is being destroyed if they are not "naturally" in charge as men.

However, there is a long way to go before being a woman is regarded as the same in achieving power and influence. So long as it does, feminism has a vital role to play. This gap, which amounts to a loss of $26,095 each year, means that to make as much as men do on a twelve month calendar women have to work for twenty two months to make at least a third of what men do in one year. Women face a pay gap in nearly every occupation. The gender pay gap is the worst for working mothers, and only gets worse with age.

Women should be able to earn enough money to provide for their children. For some mothers if the pay gap is fixed then they will be able to pay for an education for their children. Women will be looked upon as reliable and strong, just as men are. Women and men are equals and should be treated as equals, not one prefered over the other. The wage gap can be even larger for women of color. Among women who work full-time, year round jobs in the United States, African American women are typically paid 63 cents and Latinas are paid just 54 cents for every dollar paid to men. Asian women are paid 85 cents for every dollar paid to men. The wage gap also varies by state and congressional district but spans nearly all corners of the country. In Wyoming, for example, women are paid 64 cents for every dollar paid to men (a gap of 36 cents for every dollar), while in New York and Delaware, women are paid 89 cents for every dollar paid to men. In 429 of the country’s 435 congressional districts (99 percent), the median yearly pay for women who work full time, year-round is less than the median yearly pay for men.

The next president should first and foremost make sure the wage gap problem is solved by using taxes to fill in the 20% gap. They should also be the one to influence younger boys and men alike to treat women equally. They should be the one to make the word woman though of as relevant in achieving power and influence. As for women’s reproductive rights, women should be able to make their own choices. Once women are treated as equals with men the rest will fall into place.

Prue and Allison

Works Cited

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ez.trl.org/pov/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=f89ecafc-a970-40af-9b35-c0f919bba69f%40sessionmgr4009&hid=4204&bdata=JnNpdGU9cG92LWxpdmU%3d#AN=23700066&db=pwh

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ez.trl.org/pov/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=4c8c5ae5-034e-4e67-9606-09f6e08c0673%40sessionmgr4009&hid=4204&bdata=JnNpdGU9cG92LWxpdmU%3d#AN=23700065&db=pwh