Victoria Phillips
11/5/2010
4:56 pm
Even though females are beginning to come into the political light, they still have to endure petty comments about their appearance from their hair and make up to their cleavage and their clothes. It seems like the feminist movement is taking a step backwards. In fact, sexist attacks are what keeps many females from running for office in the United States. This also a reason why the United States has a very low female representation in legislature. Women hold 17% of positions in the US legislature. In many other countries, female representation is much higher. Many women in the political eye, like Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, have went through these sexist attacks. It’s not just men who are making these sexual comments. Women are also very critical of other political women. After the recent voting on Tuesday, it may result in women having less representation in politics than before. This would be the first decline for women in politics since 1987.
Women in politics should be held to the same standards as their male counterparts. Also, their knowledge on certain topics and their political views should be more important than their looks. This has a lot to do with traditional roles between men and women. Women are expected to be attractive and to be more concerned with their hair and makeup than political issues or worldly affairs. Men are expected to handle all of the business affairs. It’s becoming more and more common for women to be interested in politics, but society still keeps its overall sexist view.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110406100.html
1 comment:
If 17% of women hold power in office that means men hold 83%. This is a problem world wide. There are more women than men in the world, you would think that this day in time the rates of women in office would be higher than they currently are, internationally this need to be changed.
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