Women’s Studies: Rust v. Sullivan’ case

A woman who enters into multiple marriages is said to practice polyandry. If the men are related, the union might take place all at once, but in some cases, the process takes place gradually, one spouse at a time. The women provides equal service to all the men in terms of respect, sex, and other responsibilities while the men share a home and work together to support their wives and the blended family. Except in some African groups like the Irigwe and Masai communities and among Native Americans, the practice is uncommon (Weber). These practices occur in areas where resources are scarce, and so the men team up to work one piece of land and get sufficient food to sustain all of them.

The factors that encourage polyandry practice are a population with more males than females, high male mortality rates and to ensure security for the women in the case where there are high mortality rates and the husband wants to ensure his wife shall not be left alone should he die. These marriages do have many cases of divorce because the marriage is more of a community affair. However, in cases where it occurred, the man merely takes his belongings and leaves their home. These forms of marriages have higher rates of success compared to today’s kinds of marriages between one man and woman, which do not last; this is an indicator that there is happiness in such unions. However, other places in the world view this type of marriages as illegal and some religions do not allow for such. However, embracing it would bring forth the possibility of more fulfilling marriages, less divorce cases, and a population balance especially in areas with more males than females would be realized.

Part #2

The culture of violent masculinity, which is observed in males across all the cultural and racial divides, could be blamed on the society as a whole. It is because communities have put in place gender dynamics that reflect the males as dominant and the women as weak. This, in turn, makes the men feel mighty and expect the women to be submissive to them. Unfortunately, the men take advantage of the women’s weakness and mete out violence, rape, and physical assault on them. The children watch as their father’s assault the mothers and grow up thinking that it is all right to do as their fathers. Therefore, they grow cordoning all manner of violence and adapt it, and since society does not do much to initiate change, then this violent masculinity become embedded in the culture. There is the tendency in society to shift the blame of violence from the perpetrator to the victim, which further encourages more violence amongst the men. This kind of attitudes has contributed significantly to the increase in violence against women.

Masculinity violence is learned from observations and experiences that young males go through while growing up. Then they realize that the societal attitudes are geared towards protecting the perpetrator of the violence and laying blame on the assaulted, and this encourages them to continue in this trend. One way that this culture of violence can be changed is through change of attitudes, the perpetrator of the violence should be blamed and not the victim (“To Change Attitudes to Family Violence, We Need a Shift in Gender Views”). This will ensure that this culture of accepting and supporting violence ends. The other thing is to stop gender stereotyping and create law reforms that regulate gender equality in organizations, which is another active contributor to masculinity violence.

Women are more likely to accept this change compared to the male counterparts because they hold more compassion and care (NerdLove) than men who are more focused on testosterone releasing stuff that will have them labeled as a hero. Therefore, women need to use this as well as their attitudes to indicate that they do not condone violence and there are better ways of expressing masculinity.

Part #3

In 1973 on 22nd of January, a significant Supreme Court ruling was released on the famously known Roe vs. Wade court ruling. This case is considered a landmark case in the laws governing abortion because it created the turning point in the reproductive rights of women (Lewis). The decision was that women and their doctors could decide to go on with the procurement of abortion in the first trimesters of the pregnancy without any legal restrictions, except for a pregnancy that would be in the late trimesters. Therefore, women were mandated to procure an abortion in their first trimester of pregnancy and the second trimester if the mother was in danger. In 1992, a court ruling in the case “Planned Parenthood v. Casey,” the right to conduct an abortion was upheld in Pennsylvania. However, there was a deviation to the effect that a married woman planning to undergo an abortion was expected to notify her husband. This court decision weakened the Roe ruling.

The case of ‘planned parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth in 1976 held in Missouri was a ruling that bent toward strengthening the Roes ruling. The decision that struck down the law requiring the consent of either spouses or parents before procuring an abortion was a step towards more freedom without necessarily giving powers to third parties to either provide consent.

The ruling on the ‘Rust v. Sullivan’ case was a big blow to the reproductive rights of women as realized in the Roe’s case. The ruling banned the use of federal funds received under Title X for promoting or advocating abortion as a means of birth control.In Nebraska in a court ruling in the case ‘Stenberg v. Carhart,’the partial-birth abortions law was banned because it did not create an exception for the cases where a woman’s health was put at risk by a pregnancy which was considered as ‘undue burden’(Markels). This law was edged towards the Roe case ruling.

The Roes case may stand to an extent, except for the new laws that may twist it. This will be in instances where the woman has to prove that in the second trimester that the pregnancy is a risk to her health. However, the various states may alter this law to suit the issues and the court cases that come up as well as the evidence that will be tabled in each case.

Part #4

The gender wage disparity, which has plagued the labor market of America, is a connection to the gender discrimination that is observable in various platforms of society. the disparity is more obvious in the lower ranks of labor and even more pronounced amongst the minority groups such as African American and Latino women. So women face gender inequalities in all spheres, at their homes, in education, at work and in the salary scales, they get.

There is the need therefore to bridge these salary gaps because the families of these women are the ones that suffer (”Issues - NWLC“). The women are not able to afford essential childcare services when they are at work and are not enrolled in schools on time due to the scarcity of funds. This means that these children do not get a healthy start in life socially and academically because their mother’s low wages cannot cater for it.

This means that few can make it into reputable colleges and this means that they also have to enter the job market with what little education they hold. This puts them at a disadvantage against the competitive field of young professionals with barely enough academic certifications to get them a decent job.

Thus, they are forced to settle for menial jobs that earn them little pay to just get them by in life. Their life is transformed into their parents, and the cycle of poverty keeps on rolling. If these women were assisted in getting and negotiating for reasonable pay, then the children would be well catered for, and they would have a chance of making their lives better with an adequate education.

The title VII of the civil rights act 1964 prohibits employment discrimination (”Title VII of the Civil Rights Act Of 1964“). The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay act of 2009 was an amendment to the title VII act. This law protects the employees in the matter of pay scale and employment opportunities regardless of their race or color. These are also included in labor organizational practices whereby members are expelled or excluded should they be culpable for such acts.

Works Cited

Lewis, Jone Johnson. ”What You Need To Know About The Roe V. Wade Decision.“ ThoughtCo. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Oct. 2017.

Markels, Alex. ”Supreme Court’s Evolving Rulings On Abortion.“ NPR.org. N.p., 2005. Web. 27 Oct. 2017.

NerdLove, Dr. ”What Is Toxic Masculinity? - Paging Dr. Nerdlove.“ Paging Dr. NerdLove. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Oct. 2017.

”Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.“ Eeoc.gov. Web. 27 Oct. 2017.

”To Change Attitudes to Family Violence, We Need A Shift in Gender Views.“ The Conversation. N.p., 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2017.

Weber, Stephanie. ”Yes, There Is A Marriage Practice Where Women Have Multiple Husbands - Modern Notion.“ Modern Notion. N.p., 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2017.