https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4123456/

more men in higher paying jobs

more men work

men work more hours a week than women

It’s not really new to anyone in our country (at least I hope not) that women are underrepresented in our government these days. However interestingly enough, studies show that female interest in politics has increased. So why has  their political involvement remains stagnant? Only a about  18%  of women in the United States participate in any leadership positions in the United States government.

This number is  is even far less than that of the developing nations. Uganda has a 49% participation rate which is a dramatically small figure considering the many factors that have propelled women forward in the political and business frontier within the last century. Even though some gracious people acknowledge that women have reached gender parity, this should not be a platform for complacency  as “gratitude never radicalized anybody.” I believe that Several factors have negatively impacted female participation in United States politics. For example women’s responsibility for childcare along with the belief in their qualification for the position, and the lack of confidence in their ability.

The lack of female representation in elected government positions is  a multilayered problem. Fundumentally a democracy is about representing all people, and women comprise over half of the population of the United States however their representative voice is lacking. The consequences of this lack of representation have been exemplified by recent health care dialogues by the Trump administration.   In a round table Trump posted concerning women’s health care in his proposed bill there were no women present at the table. The less representation, the less legislative advocay for women’s issues takes place. One reason the prospect of cutting planned parenthood is on the table is due to the small number of women in government positions. Female leaders such as Nancy Pelosi and Tammy Duckworth sit on many committees and are entrusted to represent women in all issues, while men are allowed to gravitate to their area of expertise.

Although there has been significant progress in women’s rights, women are for sure still chained to the stereotypical gender roles the major one being  that women bear the significant responsibility of childcare and household affairs.

A major reason women don’t run as much as men is what is called the ambition gap. According to New York Times study men are twice as likely to consider running for office as women. The Times suggest the reason for this is that society rewards men for ambition, but not necessarily women. Women are socialized to be hesitant about promoting themselves. Personally I believe that the times reason behind women not running for offices frequently is true. This is because women are still forced to live through the labels that men have set in older times and are slowly trying to break them. Based off my experience, men are in most cases more assertive in how they deal with people where as women tend to be hesitant to speak up due to possible negative reactions.

A survey conducted by the American University of Washington D.C. in 2001 supports this fact. The same survey conducted a decade later in 2011 shows little has changed regarding women’s familial responsibilities. The problem with women in politics does not lie merely in the presumption that women are burdened with family responsibilities, but rather because there is a cultural idea for women to harmonize the role of “working woman” with quintessential housewife. This desire to achieve a “balance” illuminates the complexity in choices faced by women, inapplicable to men. The phrase “having it all” is a myth that impedes upon ambition, until a single basic truth is revealed: no one can have it all. In the words of Sheryl Sandberg, “Being a working parent means making adjustments, compromises and sacrifices every day.” Dispelling such belief in superhuman gender roles (and in effect, recognizing that women are human) will lend power to the rise of female politicians and opportunities in the United States.

References:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ella-gonzalez/women-in-politics_b_4077687.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlotte-hill/the-notsosecret-reason-wh_b_7818602.html

The deliberation that I chose to attend this past week was about safe sex and sexual abuse. I decided to attend this topic not only because it actually fit into my schedule but also because I felt that it was a very relevant and important topic for college students. The students who held the deliberation were great with involving the audience and seemed to know what they were talking about. In addition to these students the audience was very good in actually interacting with the panel and discussing the topic. Though everyone did participate in the audience there was a police officer in the back that I believe created the involved environment.

The first approach for this deliberation was very smart to start with and was really important for the rest of the deliberation. This approach presented and defined all of the terms in relation to sex and sexual violence. The group needed to begin with this as the definitions helped the audience have some background information that was necessary for other approaches of the discussion to build off of. All of the definitions that were presented were pretty specific and helped to really clear up any confusion in between the terms such as sexual assault and sexual harassment. Something that I found to be very interesting was that the definitions for these terms could differ depending on what state or country you were in at the time.

The other approaches in the deliberation were very interesting because they involved the students on campus, as well as the campus administration. There was one approach that really caught my attention and it talked about a bunch of notification systems and prevention resources that I had never actually heard of. In addition to the text messages that I get, the “Timely Warnings”, there are two other main sources of notification. What does it say about PSU if it’s students don’t even know about these resources? One of the discussions revolved around the frequency in which the timely warnings were being sent. There are multiple warnings sent out every week, sometimes every day depending on the week. In my opinion the repetition of seeing these notifications seems to take away the severity of the impact that the warnings have on students including myself. I’m sure that the higher the frequency that the alerts are sent out, the less people seem to notice them.

The police officer that I mentioned in my first paragraph, brought up a very interesting topic.She told us that the university is obliged to notify all students and staff when there is a report. Regardless when the act occurred, the notification must be sent out. Furthermore, most people do not want to admit all of the information, and the qualities of the individuals are all “unknown”. This results in having things like race, height, sex, weight, eye color, age, etc. be unknowns. This is unhelpful in identifying the suspect and results in students paying less attention to reports.

This deliberation really helped open my eyes to specific terms and their definitions. In addition it was super cool to be able to hear the point of view of the students directly before and after the information provided by the police officer who actually knows laws and is around these situations.