The Improbable Task

In 1960, when Hillary Clinton was thirteen years old she wrote to NASA inquiring on how to be an astronaut. NASA in return replied with “We’re not interested in women astronauts” . Hillary Clinton was denied her American Dream for one reason, she is a woman. Since 1931, the term “American Dream” has been defined in different by U.S. citizens. The American Dream is defined as having liberty and the equal political, economic and social opportunity to pursue your own interests.Though many minority groups have not be able to attain the American Dream due to their ethnicity or religion, women have not been able to reach the American Dream because of their gender.Throughout history they have been seen as too moral for politics or not shrewd enough for economics.The foundation of the American Dream is the “equal opportunity for all” and although women have made progress since the 19th century, women have never been on the same playing field as men to pursue their American Dream. Women have been denied equal pay opportunities, high ranking corporate jobs and in the past even been denied the right to vote. Women do not have equal opportunities for the American Dream, but America has made progress as a nation in giving women the equal economic, social, and political opportunity to achieve their American Dream.

Women throughout history have been denied the equal opportunity to achieve the American Dream. Women who helped create America as nation by being nurses and sewing clothes for uniforms during the revolutionary war were promised the equal opportunity to men to achieve their American Dream by being equal to men, which would give the right to vote and voice their opinion in politics and have political freedom. This promise was broken and like many promises made by America to minority groups women were fed an excuse dressed as something respectable and admissible, in the case of women it was called Republican motherhood. An ideology that women were to stay at home and indoctrinate their children with republican values. In the nineteenth century women were bound by the American cultural identity called the “Cult of Domesticity”. Women were expected to keep to the home like a hermit and exemplify the morality of motherhood and being wife by raising the children and taking care of domestic duties. The Separate Spheres Doctrine was a document that said that women and men had separate spheres of work. Women were supposed to stay in their sphere of the home, while men were required to stay their sphere of politics.An American female dreams of being a politician. Whenever the topic of politics comes up a huge smile is on her face; her eyes crinkle as she shrewdly knows answer every political question, but this does not matter. She is a female and therefore she is not only denied of the chance of being a politician but shes also eschewed. Living in a country that promises freedom, living in a country that promises justice, living in a country whose constitution endows equal opportunity for all a women is shunned for wanting to achieve her American Dream because it does not follow the rules that society has laid down for a female and that the ideal of who falls under the category “equality for all” are white males. This same young woman`s eyes slowing uncrinkle, eyebrows begin to slant and lips start to droop downwards because she knows that America will never allow her the equal political opportunity for her to be a politician. In 1848 women took a stand at the Seneca Falls convention in New York which ended with the signing of the Declaration of Sentiments by sixty-eight women and 32 men. It was the first step towards equal opportunity for women achieve their American Dream.

America as a nation began to make progress in providing women the equal opportunity to achieve their American Dream. The industrial revolution allowed women to move to the cities and start advocating for the equal opportunity. In 1869 the Wyoming territory passed the first women's suffrage laws and from 1893 to 1918 fourteen states followed Colorado in passing the amendment for women to give the right to vote. Women now can at least in fourteen states voice their concern in politics. Laws in their state will not just be passed without women having a say and women have a chance to help nullify laws that will impede on their rights. Finally in 1919 women gained some of the freedom promised to them after the Revolutionary War, the right to vote. The women suffrage amendment is passed in congress and then sent to the states for ratification. Although fourteen states had already granted women the right to vote, this forced the other thirty-six states to allow women the right to vote and gave women the right to vote on a national level. America recognized that women have the prerogative to make decisions in politics. The American government accepts that women have intelligence to make decisions that affect the nation. A right that had been enjoyed by white males for over one hundred years finally was passed on to women. Women began to step the staircase equality to having equal opportunity to reach their American dream. As women began to enjoy limited political freedom, social freedom began to follow. In 1921 Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which would later evolve into Planned Parenthood in 1942. Women now could take control of contraception. Prior to this women did have the option for birth control any clinic those that tried to open up a clinic was eventually shut down and the owners arrested. Margaret Sanger tried to open a clinic in 1916 but was shut down and arrested but she eventually wins the backing of the courts and eventually open up another clinic in 1923. Women were now provided the opportunity to decide if they wanted a have a child or not. Social pressures stemming for the “Cult of Domesticity” made many women not attempt the use birth control but the symbolic effect that women had a choice when it came to their pregnancy, that their options were not limited to having sons, that their options were not limited to producing children for the husband and the household- they were in control. Giving women this social right was a huge step for the US in giving women the American Dream of freedom. In 1963 America started to provide equal opportunity for women economically so they could achieve their American dream. The Equal Pay Act is passed on June 10th 1963 made it illegal for a women to receive less pay than a man would for that same job (https://diigo.com/075acr). A woman who is teacher that spends extra hours planning lessons for students, the exhaustion of dedicating her time to teaching causes wrinkles to form on her forehead and sweat accumulate on her brow.The sweat trickles down the nape of her neck and onto her green shirt collar but she continues on. Even with all this work she is not paid the same; she does not have economic equality the Equal Pay Act helps change that. It helps give women the equal opportunity attain their American Dream of economic equality. In 1967 America continues to make strides in giving women the equal opportunity for their American Dream when Lyndon Johnson Affirmative Action policy of 1965 is expanded to cover gender.This forced businesses and federal agencies to ensure that women had the same educational and employment claims as white males. This was massive win for women as it ensured under the law that equal economic opportunity for women to attain American Dream. The 1974 Roe vs Wade was a Supreme Court that reaffirmed all the steps women had made in gaining equal opportunity by overriding anti-abortion laws in many states. The rate of progress America made in providing females the equal opportunity to the American Dream from the mid to late 19th century to the late 20th century was monumental but from the late 20th century to the present women still do not have the equal opportunity for the American Dream.

Although in the late 20th century to the early 21st century equal opportunity for women continue to rise, women are still not on the same playing field as men for the opportunity at the American Dream. EMILY passed in 1984 established a financial network for liberal Democratic women running for national positions, and the passing of title nine in 1972 that prohibits the disincludement in activities or benefits based on gender was upheld in Jackson vs Birmingham Board of Educationin 2005 it also had added to it that title nine prohibits discrimination of sex based complaints.While these were both great achievements the EEOC passed in 1968 opens the way for women to apply for higher paying jobs but a 2014-2015 study constructed by the UC Davis Deparment of Business shows that women in California only hold 11.5% of board seats and the highest paid executive positions. Even though laws have been passed for women to be able to have equal opportunity, American big business and big business leaders have not stepped up and begin to follow these laws and hire more women into executive management positions because of the social prejudices that American identity still carries such as the “Cult of Domesticity”. In California 87.6 % of men hold director seats and only 14 out of 400 companies have women serving as CEO. Women still do not have the equal opportunity for the American Dream because the can not even get a high ranking job in big business companies, with only 3.5% of big business companies hiring women as CEO`s; American businesses severely lacks female high ranking officials and business input. There is also still a 20 % pay gap between men and women despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act. Social inequality still yields for women not to have the same economic opportunities as men do, because even though they do the same job as men and they work just as efficiently they are stilled paid 20% less. In this modern era women still do not have equal political opportunity; over 70 countires have seen female presidents or head states, some of those include Brazil`s Dilma Rousseff, South Korea`s Park Geun-hye, Mawali`s Joyce Banda, Argentina`s Cristina Fernadez and Kosovo`s Atifete Jahjaga (https://diigo.com/075auh). None of these countries had histories of democratic tradition and yet they have a female president. America a country who prides itself of having a history of democratic tradition since its birth has not been able to elect a female president. Many of these female presidents have done more for their countries in a single term than many male American presidents have done in single term. These female presidents increased job growth, legalized same sex marriage, passed child protection laws, reduced the national debt and ridded the government of corruption(https://diigo.com/075auh). The rate of change in the last decade is like a snail crossing a long, scorching, bumpy road--painful. The progress made for the equal opportunity for women to achieve the American Dream has been slow it is estimated that it will take 50 years for women and men to reach pay equality(https://diigo.com/075aq9).
The American Dream is characterized as having the freedom and equal social, political, and economic opportunity to pursue your own interest. Women have been denied this golden door of opportunity to reach their American Dream for over a hundred years because did not and still do not have the same economic, political, and social opportunities as men. The have been pushed out of high level corporate jobs like CEO, board of directors and CFO positions. Females have been burdened by gender roles created from the “Cult of Domesticity” and the Separate Spheres Doctrine, that for a long time stopped them from participating in sports ,before title nine and being in control of contraception which was definitively decided in Roe vs Wade.Women do not have equal opportunity politically to have political freedom as they fought for 71 years for the right to vote since Seneca Falls and continued fight to gain more protection under the law. The progress made from the end of the Revolutionary War till the present is enormous but progress still moves slowly. Women still do not have the equal political, social and economic opportunity to achieve the American Dream but progress continues be made at a continuous snail like pace.