Women And Education Essay Research Paper TOPICWomen

Women And Education Essay, Research Paper

TOPIC

Women and Education: Granting women and men equal access to education in light of the Fourteenth Amendment s pledge of equal protection.

INTRODUCTION

Though taken for granted by many, co-sex educational institutions for higher learning are really just recent occurrences. For the most part, colleges and universities, particularly elite ones, taught either men or women. The reasons for this separation date back to early American history, when a woman s place was seen as in the home. In addition, education was seen, though ridiculously, as having detrimental effects on the woman.

Some of these ludicrous, yet back then scientific beliefs, included that women s brains were smaller than men s were therefore, making them less capable of academic learning. It was also said that if women utilized their brains at the time of their adolescent years, then their reproductive organs would not develop correctly causing possible sterility.

Motherhood has always been seen as a strong link for women to their personal identities. Therefore, the greatest oppression would be to threaten its existence. Having to be a mother is a role traditionally defined by society for women; Most women long for children, even against considerable odds, even when marriage has become a light-minded undertaking, and in direst poverty; women continue to seek to be mothers. This is just one of the avenues that was taken advantage of in order to continue the intolerable oppression of preventing women from educating themselves and enlightening their lives.

Women have had to prove that they are equals of men. They have had to prove that they are as intelligent, competent, brave, and as morally responsible. With this incentive Women s Liberation was born and with it women were secured many rights, among them are: the right to vote, to educate themselves, and to have and spend their own money and properties. It became the battle to overcome the universal idea that women were pervasive and inferior. Educating themselves became one of their most significant means.

On the contrary, what happens when that battle goes so far as to interfere with a man s ability to educate himself. Should the same laws of Equal Protection apply to all individuals the same; even though in reality we are all different. Does the State, as a public sector, have the moral and lawful duty to ensure that each and every unique entity is afforded access to the same opportunity. Absolutely.

The composition that follows will attempt to demonstrate that creating a double standard to protect women really just undermines the objective. It feeds into stereotypes and in turn creates an opportunity for further prejudice and oppression. The barriers to equality can not be overcome with the same ideologies that instituted them. The definition of equality changes among generations and across different lands, but for the focus of this paper it will be the idea of getting women into the workforce, assuring women with political power, breaking down all personality and task differences based on sex, and getting rid of archaic laws designed to force women to stay in their homes against their true wishes. As put by New York State Education Commissioner, Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant professor; equality is when a female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a male schlemiel.

CONSTITUTIONAL APPLICATIONS

The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is stated as follows:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State Deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.

Better Known as the Equal Protection Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment is the core of Americans civil liberty protections. It has been the basis for the Woman s Liberation Movement as well as most efforts by minority groups in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. This is not to say that the Court always recognized the equal protection clause as the most appropriate avenue for those who believed that the law had treated them unfairly. It was not until recent decades that the Court finally let up with the concept that the equal protection clause was the last resort of constitutional arguments , as stated by Justice Holmes in 1927 (Buck v Bell). The Court s attention to race in the 1940 5 and 1950 s is what prompted this new outlook.

In the application of the Fourteenth Amendment s Equal Protection Clause the Court tests the laws and their objectives, as well as, it classifies the people to which the law has the greatest effect on. There are three different tests administered in accordance with the situation. The highest level of testing is the Strict Scrutiny Test. It is used mainly when there is a case involving racial categorization, also known as suspect classification. This test examines different ideas, such as whether the group effected has been subject to any past discrimination. If the answer to this is yes, then the purpose of the