In this paper, I will show the reader why women are not equal to men, and while there has been a lot of progress to include women into everything in society there are still a lot of pitfalls. America has become a wonderful country since the founding fathers conceived it. The milestones we have crossed and the standards we have set have changed history. With all of this though, there is still a lot more that could be done for women’s rights overall. “American society has a remarkable ability to resist change, or to take whatever change has taken place and attempt to make it go away.” This Nora Ephron quote is from 1996, that is over 20 years ago, however, it is still just as true today as it was back then. Many people do not realize this but the United States constitution still does not have any specific amendments to protect the specific rights of women. Women are still being treated as if they are second class citizens in this country, and in a court of law that treatment can be considered legal and fair. This is why the United States government needs to amend the constitution to include an equal rights amendment that protects everyone, not just white men. 

 Some people try to argue that women are already equal to men in this country, but that is simply not true. Everyday there are countless cases that prove that women are not equal to men at all, and that they are still seen as the weaker and less valuable sex. Women in American society are treated as objects to be owned or be taken. A clear example of that mentality is the case where a Stanford student sexually assaulted a young woman who was unconscious on the ground after a party. The tests all came back from the hospital saying that she had been sexually assaulted with the intent to rape that night. She had lacerations in her vagina and her body was bruised from the pavement. A pair of exchange students on bikes in the early morning saw the boy about to rape the woman behind the dumpster and called the police and chased him down to hold for police. The boy even admitted to sexually assaulting her in court. In most places that would be enough to lock him up for quite a while, however the boy simply got three months’ jail time and then got to go home. The judges defense of his lenient ruling? “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him, I think he will not be a danger to others.” (Fantz, CNN) This mentality of preserving a man’s future at any cost is part of the reason the constitution needs an Equal Rights Amendment. 

Another argument often encountered is one that women have better rights in the United States than they could get somewhere else. This is a false statement. In the government, the United States ranks an unimpressive 33 out of 49 high income states for women in the national legislature. When lower income countries are added the U.S. drops to 83rd out of 147 countries (Alter, 27). These numbers aren't terrible when compared with the previous standings of the United States. The first woman in the senate, Hattie Caraway, was only there because she was filling the vacancy left by the death of her husband. She was not actually elected until 1932. Even worse, as of 2016 there are still three states that have never elected a woman to the senate (Phillips, 7). The argument that women have it better in the United States cannot be logically true when there are not enough women represented in government. Women have always had to work harder to get up to the same level as their male counterpart in any field, no matter the job. There is no sympathy for women in the workplace or in government. A good example of no sympathy would be Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal during the 2016 Presidential Election. Mrs. Clinton was constantly put in the spotlight, or on the hot seat, for using a private e-mail server when she was serving as Secretary of State from 2010-2013 under former President Obama. This angered a lot of people and ultimately is what may have cost her the 2016 presidential election. However, when the current president and many of his cabinet members were caught using a private server people were willing to give him a pass and forgive it (Werner, paragraph 2). 