Dear Future President:

Sexism is currently not a crime in our country. While there are some laws against sexual harassment in a workplace, sexism is accepted in most environments. As young women, we do not believe sexism should be accepted because it can make people feel bad about themselves because of what gender they are, or who they see themselves being.

Sexism is demonstrated in work areas and can prevent women from getting certain jobs. In the article “Sexism”, Sexism is defined as “the belief that one sex is superior to the other.” It is shown that because of someone's gender, employers are either more likely to give them or not give them the job. For example, women can’t be priests and some people think because of religious beliefs, “ the domination of men over women will never be completely eliminated.” Also, women are less likely to be found in military training or in battle because of sexual harassment cases that have happened, and stereotypes saying that men are braver and stronger than women. Reinforcing the stereotype that women have more to do with family, the article states ”Fewer women than men are economically independent, and women remain largely responsible for the family and chores around the house.” Sexism and sexual harassment from past experiences prevent women from getting certain jobs or careers.

Sexism can even prevent girls and women from being able to access services for their health care. Gender has affected the health care world in many ways. The differences in patients’ gender determines the quality of health care, and the respect given to them. In the article “Gender Biases Negatively Impact Women's Health Care Worldwide”, it provided us with the information from studies in West Africa and Chile. As the author stated, “ Studies... have shown that women are not always treated with respect by health providers.” Women are not taken as serious as men because they are thought to be more emotional and exaggerate their ideas, meanwhile, men are more rational. Health care systems don’t recognize the needs of women or only focus on reproductive health. Some researchers have also found “‘gender inequalities in the provision of certain technologies or treatment services for the same disease.’” They often give different treatments for the same diagnosis just because of their patient’s gender. Health care providers do many gender biased things because some people assume women are worth less than men and that men are superior to women.

Sexism is the main cause of violence against women. As introduced in the article by Brian Nicholas, “Sexism causes violence against women”because men often feel that they need to be the bigger person in the relationship, and they “want power and control”. To get a feeling of being superior, some men resort to physical violence. A term used to describe this violence is battering; which means to strike repeatedly with hard blows. Some people may think that men batter because they’re unable to “express needs and desires” or they have a communication problem. However, this is untrue. Battering is a choice a man makes himself, and “no person or circumstance can make a man attack his partner verbally or physically”. The only reason men think that battering is ok is “when institutions promote sexist beliefs, they collude with men’s control of women. For example, if a church accepts this treatment towards women, it colludes with the man and supports his beliefs. Physical violence should not be a way to get control over somebody else, and should never be a part of a relationship.

Not many people would argue that sexism is not right, but some would say that women also get some rights that men don’t have because of it. Women are most likely perceived as the victims of violence that men inflict. When women go to court they are more likely to be given a commuted punishment because of the reputation that men from past generations have left. According to the article “The Death Penalty is Biased in Favor of Women” by Cathy Young, women commit 10% of the murders in the US, and only 2% of those women get a death penalty, which means that 90% of murders are committed by men, and are most likely not spared from the death penalty. “Whether one sees the death penalty as justice or barbarism, surely the perpetrator’s gender should be irrelevant”.

We thank you for your time, we know you are busy and hard at work, but we hope that we have shown you how having no laws for sexism in our country can affect us and all of the women in the world who are suffering and being attacked because of their gender. We hope you take our idea into consideration and we wish you luck for the upcoming years.

Sincerely,

Ariel and Kathleen