Women Deserve Better

If you know me then you already know that I love women, I respect women, and I am a champion of women. I have proved it my whole life, both personally and professionally. It is why I find the state of women's rights in America today so troubling and disappointing.

Unless you are a member of one of the insane anti women cults like the "sister's wives club" or the Republican party, you know that women and their respect seem to be moving backwards right now. It isn't just one area of life it literally is every aspect of their daily existence that is being destroyed piece by piece.

This hasn't been a recent struggle for them, it has gone on forever. In the early 1900's they marched for the right to vote. In the 1960's and 1970's they marched for equal pay and equal rights. Today they are still marching for equal rights, equal pay, and now you can toss in their fight to control what happens to their bodies and who gets to decide.

No matter what side of any of these issues you come down on it is impossible not to see that they are being treated as second class citizens. It's like the anti women rights group sees them as house pets and not human beings. And most of the rest of the world shrugs their shoulders and says, "oh well."

Here are two small examples to illustrate what I'm talking about.

Just this week the Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have given women the opportunity to restart the process to get the equal rights amendment added to the Bill of Rights and Constitution. It fell nine votes short in the Senate and most likely would have failed in the House too. Republicans are continuing to prove that they hate women with every opportunity they get. How you can be a woman and support this party is beyond me.

The next example is one that I have been writing about for years now. The disrespect women get with televised sports is appalling. I will say that basketball does a good job of covering their sport for women. The games are on a regular TV cycle and there is plenty of written reporting on the league too. However, that is just about it for women's sports coverage.

The LPGA routinely has their TV coverage preempted if the men are still playing. Would TV ever do that to the PGA Tour, not in a million years. The USWNT gets decent coverage, if you are up at eleven PM to watch it like most of the country needs to be. They are the best ladies soccer team in the world and they get the coveted after all the little kids are in bed time slot.

In politics, if a woman is not afraid to raise her voice on an issue she is called names while a man is labeled a hero. People pick apart a woman's outfits, hair, or make-up to show how she is less important while nobody points out that most men couldn't get dressed each day without the help of their wives or girlfriends.

In business woman are paid less, have fewer promotions, and are slotted into certain corporate positions deemed, women's work. The plum, high paying jobs, are just not available to them, without ever saying it.

Seriously, enough is enough already with the horrible treatment of women. It has been over a hundred years of struggle for them and they are really no closer to becoming equal than they were in 1913. I find it beyond disturbing that we are even having this discussion today.

The recent fight to stop the states from denying women the right to choose is encouraging in that it seems to have awoken a renewed spirit in women today. They have their fight back. They are organizing like they haven't in fifty years but they still have an uphill battle.

The male, and conservative, dominated world does not want them to succeed. It scares them in the same way that minorities gaining political footing scares them. The response is not to move out of the way but to stand in front of these small minded people and tell them times are changing and you are no longer in charge.

The first step for all of us starting to behave like humans to each other begins with treating each other as equals and allowing different voices to be heard. What are we so afraid of that we can't hear another point of view?

It is time for all of us to rally around woman and their causes and rights. To stand arm in arm with them as they continue to fight for equal rights and protections afforded them in the Constitution. It is going to take all of us working together to see changes happen. It starts today.