how women are treated in America, theory to understand their experience, their socio-economic, political, and physical challenges faced by women

how women are treated in America, theory to understand their experience, their socio-economic, political, and physical challenges faced by women

Gender discrimination against women is one of the threats of a social issue in the United States. Women pass through many forms of oppression and distressing cruelty since they are seen as inferior beings compared to men. In American history, many unfortunate unjust free and lose runs has been subjected to women and society makes little effort to stop it, or sometimes encourages unkind behavior. Women were discouraged from getting a better education since the women who pursued formal jobs were perceived to be less feminine. Despite the positive achievements of the woman in American history, gender equality is yet to be achieved. Women struggled to gain equal rights with men, especially in leadership and the workplace, but they found themselves being oppressed and neglected. For example, women were not allowed to vote before the year 1920, making the men choose the leaders they wish to rule them without considering the views of women. The fight for revolution by women and equality remains to be a significant social issue. The paper will describe how women are treated in America, applies a theory to understand their experience, their socio-economic, political, and physical challenges faced by women. Also, the chosen population implications, social workers implications and the strategies that will be useful in supporting social practices when working with the population.

History

American women have faced many challenges in their fight for equality. The act has been carried out to all women races without favoritism. Labor division between women and men has been unequal; men have taken the more significant portion in all aspects of life while the women have been left with the role of raising children. For example, the American norm permits sexism that s embraced by men in America since they use it to prevent the women from competing equally with them. The patriarchal society that was adopted by American men since the colonial period has been widely used until this period, where men believes to be superior and play a role of giving directions to women without being questioned. In the ancient times, women lacked equal political and legal rights since men were under total control.

In the current world, women have better rights compared to ancient times but they have not received the best treatment like the posts men enjoy. Firstly, Women have been given a chance to choose and control when to have children since the approval of birth control pill by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Before the year 1960, women were not allowed to use any pill to control the time to give birth and men believed that women’s only work was to get pregnant and raise kids but this pill approval shade some light to women. Secondly, the equal pay act that was signed in 1963 that prohibited wage discrimination that was sex based between women and men working in the same office made the rights of men and women equal. Lastly, in the 21st century, women rights were boosted through the omission of ban that was against women who served in combat positions. Although there have been changes regarding the rights of women in the current American society, women have not been given equal rights like the men. Therefore, much has to be done to foster equality.

Application of Theory

Several theories and concepts have been used to explain and describe women oppression as well as the reason why the act is carried out. One of them is structural functionalism theory. The theory claims that a state of balance is maintained in a society through the component parts of the society’s function and the concept also agrees on the common nature of unfair treatments and dysfunctions within the society. Therefore, basing on this theory, men bring disruption to women in the society with an aim of making them oppressed thus they cannot rise to challenge them in social matters. Men enjoy the stability of being supreme and they are not ready to loss the supremacy to the woman. Therefore, the threat of women trying to realize their potential in the society is destabilized by men who do not offer them chance to enjoy their full potentials.

The other concept explaining the oppression of women by men is the conflict theory. It argues that the group that has dominated will remain at the top and do everything possible to oppress the inferiors so that they cannot rise above them. Basing on this concept, men believe that when women are equal chance like the men they will become dominant over them and men will not be able to control them. When the women rises above men the issue of sexism will be eliminated and that is the greatest fear that makes men not to allow women to have a change of growing. To suppress this, men create social problems by oppressing women. Historically, power has been maintained by men through causing conflicts which results in women suffrages experienced.

Experience and Treatment

The history of America reveals how women have been oppressed socially, politically, economically and physically. The discriminatory practices has resulted has led to negative implications in women lives as they interact with institutions like health care, faith, economic, social and educational facilities. The oppression they faced is described below:

Social Oppression

Several social types of oppressions have been subjected to women in America. The first type of social discrimination is classism and barrier to services, women were seen as being the less fortunate in the society and they were not allowed to cross class in any circumstance. For instance in mass congregations, whenever any women stood up to raise a point, they were neglected and the point that was suggested by men were taken into consideration. Also, the women found it hard to access some services especially when the staff were mainly from dominant group. For example, in health centers, women were discriminated by staffs and they had to wait much longer to receive services. Sexism is another social oppression that women faced. The Americans believed that men are superior over women and this forced women into being subservient where they had to respect men always and do as they are directed. The social discriminations faced by women affected them in many ways as they struggle for liberation.

Physical Oppression

Women faced physical oppression in many ways. Sexual violence is one of the main physical expressions of discrimination. In American history, women were exposed to rape cases and unwanted sexual contact. Despite the women being raped, the society took the action lightly and in some cases the verdict of the case was that the women who was raped is handed over to the men who raped her for marriage. Also, when women get involved in sexual act or adultery that is outside the stipulated monogamous marriage, they are given harsh punishment unlike men who are involved in the same act. The activities results in women being affected by trauma and thus they cannot live a good life like others. It also affects their education life and makes them perform poorly or drop out of schools. The physical oppression and the judgment show how men are superior over women.

Economic Oppression

Since 19th century, women labor has been undergoing exploitation by being paid less or not being paid at all. Women make an average of 30% less income than men for equal job done, hours and same skills. The act makes the women to be dependent to men and rely on the existing system of sexism for economic gain. Currently, women are affected largely by the economic crisis since the assistance they get from the little pay does not guarantee them full support regarding economic need. The need for getting more money makes women to participate in acts like sex work in order to get money to sustain them.

Political Oppression

In the political arena, women discrimination is evident. The politics of capitalism in the history of America have disenfranchised women through making men to hold the public office posts by voting. Before 1920, men were the only ones that were allowed to vote in America while the women were not allowed to participate in voting. Also, after the women being granted the voting rights, their political roles are limited. The women who are lucky to enter political arena were limited to the expectations and rules stipulated that favored male-dominated system of politics. The discrimination makes many women to lack a leader who will fight for their rights and thus they continue to be submissive to all the men acts. Also, their continued oppression in different institutions continues making them less fortunate in the society.

Implications for Populations

Body, spirit, social and mind connection are crucial in any human being. Failure of bio-psycho-social-spiritual behavior and connectivity will result to multiple effects for the individuals involved. Considering women oppression, it leads to mental health problems that is caused by the domains of human experience, and have, psychological (mental), spiritual/social and biological (medical) impacts. The depression they experience will result in them getting medical conditions like trauma, social condition (loosing self-confidence and the meaning of life), or at times they may be affected by psychological condition (For example, individual-critical nature). Furthermore, the women who are affected by oppression will be of less value to the society since they will develop the habit of losing life value. The women population will suffer from this act by continuing being the inferior in the society while men will benefit from having more powers over women.

Implications for Social Workers

The oppressive practices that the women go through will have implications for the social workers who work with them. In reflection to the Generalist Intervention Model (engagement, assessment, intervention, evaluation), key factors can be considered regarding women oppression effects on other social workers. In the intervention stage, the social worker will have hard time when trying to mobilize resources and monitoring the client because the oppressed women issue is a normal norm in American history. It means that the action plan will not be implemented immediately. Regarding the evaluation stage, the social worker ability to monitor and determine the goal attainment will be paralyzed since tracking and reflecting women oppression cannot be defined easily. In the engagement and assessment stage, the ability to build rapport and trust as well as social worker’s aim of collecting data from the oppressed women will not be successful since the oppressed women have accepted the society norm of embracing men supremacy making the act of engaging them fail. Also, during the assessment period, the social workers will not work on a perspective that is strengths-based due to lack of enough information and the nature of the society that embraces sexism.

Strategies

In supporting culturally competent and anti-oppressive social work practice when working with oppressed women, strategies should be placed. The first strategy is to engage stakeholders and educate people on the importance of recognizing that culture extends beyond gender. The women in the American society have been discriminated regarding cultural competency and thus the strategy of mobilizing people to embrace equality across gender with the help of other close stakeholders will result in omissions of the existing culture which makes women to be inferior. Also, in doing this, the oppressive social work practices will have been discouraged since the strategy will focus on liberation and equality across gender. The second strategy is identifying cultural identity between genders and sees how psychiatry values apply. Despite Men and women being the same, self-analysis should be carried to identify the norm difference between them. Most of the men beliefs values individuality and independence, while the women do not value them. Therefore, individual therapy effectiveness should be carried so that the women could not be underestimated. The strategy is aiming at making the women to enjoy the norms they are used to instead of being forced to follow men’s cultural identity hence ending up being submissive to them. Also, the strategy will have solved the issue of oppressive practices since the women will be culturally dependent. The third crucial strategy is stopping personal prejudices through putting strict measures on individuals who acts in oppressive manner towards women. Stereotyping influences workers relationship with service user. Therefore, this strategy will be crucial in stopping social workers from exploiting some groups of people like women and make them recognize cultural power equality in both genders.

Personal Reflection

My experience and understanding of women have not been critical like how i have learned about them currently. I used to assume that both men and women were given the same share in the society but the women were reluctant to take charge especially in politics. Women oppression and cry for liberation has been one of the cases that has come into attention of many people worldwide including me especially in American history and this act made me to choose this population for the assignment. The case of women discrimination and unfair treatment by men has been widely spread by authors, activists and many people in the society terming men to be unfair and selfish people who want to rule women and oppress them. Although I had a wide cover on women oppression and the things they were limited to do, I was not aware that they were not allowed to vote before the year 1920.

Women are systematically discriminated and it has been evident that they are being oppressed on gender basis. Oppression is morally and politically wrong thus I will be appealing for social justice conception since most of the justice conventional standards is not vigilant in its act of curbing gender inequality. The assignment has taught me a lot of lessons and I will be considering equality in my social work practices without favoring men like how it is done in many places of work. The discrimination against women and other related problem can be solved mainly though educating people. The people who have dropped out of schools and the generation that embraces sexism should be mobilized through mass education and door to door mobilization. In doing this, many men will get to know that equality is the key for a successful family and they will adopt the change.

In conclusion, American patriarchal structure has impacted the women and girls negatively and makes them feel they are inferior in the society. For equality to be achieved, men should be ready to give women equal chances when it comes to leadership and other opportunities in America. Strict measures should be placed to curb the issue of sexism and women oppression.