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Content;; Women in Society Different Cultures: Same IssueIt's a known fact that women have fewer rights than men in many Muslim countries with regard to marriage, divorce, civil rights, legal status, dress code, professional lives and education. Another example is women in the Arab world, they've suffered many restrictions and discriminatory laws throughout the ages.For women to succeed, they need to work twice as hard as men, because it isn't "normal" for women to be part of the working world. Sometimes women are not recognized fully for their contributions to important discoveries due to the lack of respect. Rosalind Franklin, for exmaple, discovered the structure of DNA and two men at took the credit and won a Nobel Prize for chemistry. It was hard for her personally to go to university, as she was mocked and laugh at because she was a woman. Her own father did not pay for her university tuition because he didn't believe that women belonged in education. Luckily, her aunt payed it off. Women in North America are definately treated better compared to Muslim and Arabic societies, yet women still aren't always regarded as equal to men. Although women are venturing beyond traditional expectations of them, there is still some tension between traditional roles for women and modern roles for women. Infact, it is still sometimes believed that a woman's place is in the home. Also, men are supposed to "bring home the bacon"and be good with their hands and tools. But as Western society continues to question traditional thinking, we see some men who are stay-at-home dads and women going to work. Why can't we be strong?Although women's rights have greatly improved over the years, and women are usually accepted as being members of the workforce and such, some aspects of life remain traditional. For example, women's sports aren't as exposed as men's sports. Think about it: if you wanted to go watch a professional sports game, you are most likely to be watching men. Additionally, only 8-11% of media sports coverage is devoted to women's sports, girls in high school receive 1.1 million fewer opportunities to play varsity sports and college female athletes receive $134 million less each year in athletic sponsorships than male athletes. This situation seems to incinuate that athletics is strictly a men's playgroud. Did you know that 1 in 6 girls is obese or overweight, compared to 1 in 21 in the 70's? This is because girls are in greater risk for inactiveness because they have fewer opportunities to play sports than boys do. Another huge influence is the media: females have been brainwashed over and over again by it. Did you know by the time a girl reaches age 27, she has already seen 250,000 ads focusing on female physical appearance and "attractiveness?" As a result, around 70% of girls are unhappy with their bodies. Media & Women
Media also heavily incorporates female stereotypes. In both tv (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and video games (Lara Croft Tomb Raider), women characters are created as stereotypes: they are young, gorgeous, extremely fit, wear sexually suggestive outfits and are Caucasian. According to one study of video games, African-American female characters are predominately portrayed as victims of violence; rarely as heroic winning characters. A Latina character almost never exists, though Latinas/Latinos are now the largest ethnic minority group in the U.S.
Women worldwide are lacking health care systems. One billion people are lacking access to health care systems, around 11 million children (under 5 yrs) die from malnutrition and preventabe diseases each year, 40 million people living with HIV, and having almost 11 million eople dying of infectous diseases. Some women in more civilzed societies cannot even afford to visit the doctor, because the world is lacking a health care system can pay for people.
The media again is responsible for another crisis: eating disorders. With more advertisements and messages affecting our lives, beauty has really made itself and thin definition. This issue with beauty has begun since the first human beings made fun of each other's appearances, to the middle ages where thin was not acceptable. Nowadays, thin is the newest craze; being overweight or having average weight is a no-no. |
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| Battle of the Sexes - (c) Julia, Celine, Kamilla, Veronika |
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