Yazket Espino
March 20, 2012

When Will It End
Throughout history, women have been thought of and treated as the weaker gender. Thought to be but mothers and wives, women have begun to change their identity. In recent years, women have been provided with the opportunity of obtain a higher education. With that, they are provided with better opportunities to build careers for themselves. Plenty of women today have succeeded in life without the help of men and are able to work in the same fields as them. Even though they have succeeded throughout the last years, women today still face oppression as they did in the past.
An area in which women still face oppression today, as they always have, is in the work place. Although many women have great careers today, men still have an advantage given the fact that they regularly get paid more. In a study done by the General Accountability Office (GAO), the numbers show the difference between a women’s paycheck and that of a man’s. According to the GAO, “Even accounting for factors such as occupation, industry, race, marital status and job tenure, working women today earn an average of 80 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. This pay gap has persisted for the past two decades.” Despite enormous gains made by the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Right Movement, men still obtain about 75% of all doctor and lawyer jobs in the United States. Whether these women have a higher education than that of their male coworkers, it seems almost impossible for them to get paid equally or more than their male counterpart.
For decades, women have fought for and earned the rights they enjoy today. For many years, they were not allowed to vote or work outside of the home. The only women allowed to work were those who were forced to do so under slavery. As W.E.B. Du Bois states in The Damnation of Women, “The crushing weight of slavery fell on black women. Under it there was no legal marriage, no legal family, no legal control over children.” Despite the deplorable circumstances of slavery, women like Harriet Tubman not only survived, but went on to make significant contributions to our nation’s history, and furthered the notion that woman are members of society worthy of equal rights. For colored women, struggling for so long and actually surviving was an accomplishment within itself. Because of those women that were willing to stay strong through those rough times, we have role models today like First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah, and so on, that contribute so much to our society. It is their great efforts to succeed in a male-dominated society that inspires other women to follow their example and strive for success.
In Conduct in the Street, the author, Eliza Leslie, explains the everyday troubles women have had to face in the streets throughout the years. Not only does Eliza disclose the problems she faced during her time, but realizes that these problems still continue to exist today. For example, she explains, “No lady should venture to ride in an omnibus after dark, unless she is escorted by a gentleman whom she knows.” Eliza continues on to explain the realities women face, including the verbal and physical abuse men can cause them. She also explains that while many men can be gentleman, others can be cruel and disrespectful and that one must not be too careful. Women today become exploited by these men whenever given the opportunity, as it happened to the women of her day.
For many years, women have experienced oppression in numerous ways. Being alongside men since the beginning of time, women have been exploited and oppressed. They have not obtained the same respect and rights as man have. Despite the difficulties, however, they have grown and progressed and earned their place in society. From Harriet Tubman to other women activists, these women have made change possible. Women now have the same educational and financial opportunities that were absent decades ago. Nevertheless, even with these changes, it is impossible to tell whether or not the exploitation and oppression against women in America will ever end.