http://www.upworthy.com/if-we-had-a-lot-more-women-in-power-the-minimum-wage-would-have-been-increased-by-now-heres-why?c=hpstream
I found this infographic that depicts how many women are earning minimum wage in comparison to men. I think that these statistics do a good job of showing how women are predominantly the one's working jobs that receive minimum wage. Interestingly Missouri is one of the states where women are not only working more than half of the minimum wage jobs, but 60 percent of them. The title says it all that if women were better represented in government positions, then the issue of minimum wage would have been taken care or at least would be more important than it has been in the past. Despite women making up over 50 percent of the US population, right now women still only make up 20 percent of the women in congress. Sadly this is the highest women's representation in congress has ever been. I agree with the title of this link that if women had greater representation issues that directly affect women, would become bigger priorities for legislators.
I am a little skeptical of the idea that increased representation in legislatures would increase equity and respect of rights for all women. Because women don't just vote their gender, but also their party, their donors, and their constituents, I don't think that women in congress have a substantial dedication to women's issues. Minimum wage is a women's rights issue, but it also violates some fundamental economic conservative beliefs. That said, I think it is crucial for more women to be in public office in our representative democracy.
ReplyDeleteA good example of the effect of higher percentages of women in the legislature can be seen in the Scandinavian countries of norther Europe. Although they have not reached 50%, they have the highest percentage of women in the legislature of any countries in the world, and not surprisingly, they are also the most progressive in terms of social policy. It is impossible to say which one caused the other, but the two are definitely very correlated.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that we need more women needed in government positions in order to show that a women can be in a higher position and run it as good as a male candidate. It is kind of a shame to our society that we call ourselves a developed country, but we still don't believe that a women can run the country. I hope this changes over the time period.
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