Hw 41: Initial Internet Research on Schooling

Recently I've become very interested in feminism and have started reading books on women's oppression is today's media and society. Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Although women have come a long way in fighting for equality, there is still great inequality that exists in the work place and even at home. I've become fervent about shaking the vulgar stereotypes women are labeled with and desire to exterminate the constant double standards that hurt and degrade women.

I was reading an Article by Jessica Valenti that was in the Washington post that discussed how women's oppression still very must exists today, emphasising in the amount of violence that is targeted towards women.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902049.html

Although this doesn't directly have to do with women's experience with education in past history, I feel it is significant to highlight the overall struggle women still face in a male dominant world, even after everything they've overcome. Girls in third world countries are not even given the option to schooling, let alone the opportunities available in America. Historically women have been considered not only physically inferior to men but also intelectually.
 Keeping that in mind, there is still a long ways journey for womens equality to go. I beleive that a women's work must begin in the classroom, that in order to truly go anywere in this scoeity we must first have a strong foundation of education behind us, because naturally one of the main components of school is to teach students how to communicate well.
And thats what we need, to communicate and advocate that women should no longer be seen as weaker then men in any setting prodominately
But even so, women who are highly successful don't quite meet the bar the men are set on. Valenti was mentioning in her article "The distressing statistics don't stop with violence: Women hold 17 percent of the seats in Congress; abortion is legal, but more than 85 percent of counties in the United States have no provider; women work outside the home, but they make about 76 cents to a man's dollar and make up the majority of Americans living in poverty."
I begin to wonder when women will legitamitely be in the same lauge as men, and how we could have let it be so unbalanced all this time.
Because in fact, more women are going to college over ment these days.


Of course, an important place to focus on is the opportunites of education. Formal education for girls historically has been secondary to that for boys. From the get-go, women have had to fight for their right to be given a proper education. Men were seen as superiors, the bread winners and source of income, whereas women were expected to look after the home and comfort their men when they came home from a long days work, in addition to bearing and raising children.
Although it didn't start out that way, by the end of the 19th century the nuber of female students had increased greatly from just the standard dame school that only taught girls how to read and write. More boys went on to higher education instead of girls because it was expected for girls to just carry out their womenly duties in the home, which didn't require advanced learning.
Obviously the tables have turned today, and women have grown to be more independent and less reliable on a mans paycheck.


Source 1: http://www.pdhre.org/rights/women_and_education.html

But even so, just gaining constitutional rights wasn't enough to stop prejudice from men.
It wasn't until the the 1940s, when so many men were in military service, that women got the chance to demonstrate that they could do "men's" jobs as well as the men could. A lot of the wives and mothers had to step into male dominated jobs when their husbands and fathers were off fighting in war, and many realized that they could do just as well, if not better. From then on the fight against oppression in the workplace began.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/gender-trade-offs/?emc=eta1

Women's struggle has made them more prone to work harder for what they don't have. More girls go to college then boys.