This is a man's world, though not how it once was. Women today have broken through the once male-dominated fabric of our country and have attained occupation in once male-only professions, such as the legal profession, medicine, business ownership and politics. This breakthrough is reflective of how far we have progressed as a society and a civilization, in the attempt to hopefully treating women as our equals, but we still have a very long road on which to travel to reach our end goal.
Going back fifty, seventy-five or a hundred years, women's roles were centered upon the family. They were matriarchal figures who reared children, tended to their homes and husbands, and had little or no rights. They couldn't vote, own property or hold public office. But times have changed, and I feel that they have changed for the better.
Women today have made great strides as opposed to their counterparts generations ago. They are attorneys, doctors, corporate executives, professional athletes, professors, business owners and have penetrated what was once considered the ultimate all-boys club - the US Senate. Women are striving to better themselves. For the longest time, women were not allowed to attend college, and now statistics show that more women than men are enrolling in our nation's colleges and universities. Another statistic has shown that for the first time, more women are graduating from law schools than men.
Despite all the gains that women have made over the generations, they are still living in a man's world. They do hold professional occupations, but many are underpaid in those professions compared to their male colleagues, and often are subjected to mistreatment within these environments, such as being denied promotion or pay raises.
Women strive to be treated as equals, but due to a petty and ignorant tradition, our society believes that women are only suited for certain roles and not for others. But history has shown us that women have done great things for our nation, things that only women could have done. And, history has also shown us that men have created chaos and death, because men said that women don't have the stomach for war. (Which isn't necessarily a bad characteristic to possess).
If we are truly to become a great society and a nation better than its demons, then we must throw off the mantle of the past of keeping women out of certain areas of our society. There's a reason that men call them "our better half."
