I have written pieces celebrating Women’s History month since 1986 to alert readers about laws, bills, and executive orders which damage women and children. I’ve offered educational information about outstanding things women have done, and I’ve chaired events to honor Northeastern Louisiana women present and past to show the continuity of women’s positive contributions to our area and to our nation.
This year, I offer a “state of the women” paper to help readers understand where we stand today.
Unknown numbers of women have contributed greatly to the improvement of the world despite cultural discrimination against them. Women continue to achieve beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
That we do not know about women’s achievements is a part of our oppression. We must teach our children a complete and diverse history, which includes studying the deeds of all people of both genders.
Wages continue to be differentiated by gender; men are paid more than women for the same work, despite identical education, experience, and type of work.
The fight for women’s rights is unfinished. We still lack an equal rights amendment that guarantees equal rights for women. In 2002, President Bush signed an executive order recognizing a zygote/fetus as a person purportedly “to protect the fetus” by governmental insurance when he could have extended the insurance to pregnant women. And this week, the United States House of Representatives passed a law recognizing fetuses as “people’ in cases of murder of pregnant women, citing an emotional case in which a man is charged with killing his pregnant wife.
Both are stealth moves to give more constitutional rights to fetuses than living, fully functioning women have today.
We have come a long way—but definitely not far enough!
During this Women’s History Month, consider the tenuous rights of women—tenuous only because we were born female. Talk about this dilemma with your family and friends. Then write to your senators, representatives, and president and demand that women’s God-given rights be restored to us.
America owes women in many ways. American men guaranteed themselves constitutional rights more than two hundred years ago. It’s well past time to extend those same rights to American women.