Men and Women Are Not Equal

Men and women are not equal under the law despite the efforts of many to make it happen. One of the most common factors sited is women are paid about seventy cents for every dollar a male makes for the same job. There is no justifying this discrepancy and as long as it exists, women will never view themselves as being equal under the law, nor should they.

Still, there are other areas where men and women are not equal and until they too are made so, the two sexes will never be considered equal under the law.

I was in high school when Title IX was passed. This law, among other things, opened up the way for females to participate in sports on a much larger scale. High schools could no longer have a boys basketball team without offering a girls team. Male sports, like football, now had to allow girls to try out for the team if they did not offer a girls team or drop their football program all together. This law resulted in millions of girls being able to excel in athletics, land college scholarships, and led to the rise of U.S. Women dominating in Olympic sports like track and field, basketball, and swimming while also seeing the rise of the U.S. Women in World Cup Soccer.

It was not unusual to see stories about high school girls who played on their school's football team, usually as a kicker but occasionally as a position player too. More recently, I have read stories of girls competing against boys in wrestling. Many times the girl wins her match by forfeit because the boy refuses to physically fight a female because he was raised to believe this is wrong. I have also read stories of girls pitching on their school's baseball team instead of playing on the girls softball squad. However, I do not recall ever reading a story about a boy competing on his high school girls team in any sport. I have, however, read several stories where boys were denied their request to do so. Often times the reason given is the physical advantage the boy has; in other words, the two sexes are not equal.

As a teacher, I was once asked by a student if I believed men and women receive equal treatment under the law. My answer was, “No. Until women are paid the same as men for the same work, they will never be equal under the law.” All the girls clapped their approval and a few turned to the boys to ask them why they can't be as open minded as their teacher. Then I followed with, “Women will also never be considered equal to men until they receive equal punishment under the law.” At this point, the guys clapped their approval.

The fact is, the court system is far more sexist than the rest of our society. For every female behind bars, there are at least ten males in prison. Are men ten times more violent than women? We'd like to think so but if you ever taught at a middle school or high school you'd know the worst fights to break up are those pitting females against each other and their frequency often out paces male fights. Add to that, boys will throw a couple of punches and that usually settles the matter. Not with girls. They never forget and even if a fight is broken up between them, it is rarely fully resolved.

Besides violence, lets look at other differences in punishments. A male teacher who gets busted for having an inappropriate relationship with a female student is sentenced to prison for a long period of time and usually ends up with the other sex offenders. Few will feel sorry for this man for breaking the trust we placed in him. However, female teachers who are found guilty for a similar relationship with a male student are often given very light sentences, six months to a year, before being paroled. The male teacher is labeled a sexual predator or pedophile while the female is often painted as a confused woman in need of counseling and not time behind bars.

So remember, the next time you complain about the lower pay women receive for the same work as men do, they also receive beneficial treatment under our sentencing laws. In other words, had they lived, Bonnie and Clyde would not have received the same sentence. Clyde would have been executed while Bonnie probably would have been released after a few years at which time she would have spent what was left of every seventy cents Clyde gave her for each one of the dollars he kept for himself.