female marginalization essay

A global story

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series . In this essay series, Brookings scholars, public officials, and other subject-area experts examine the current state of gender equality 100 years after the 19th Amendment was adopted to the U.S. Constitution and propose recommendations to cull the prevalence of gender-based discrimination in the United States and around the world.

The year 2020 will stand out in the history books. It will always be remembered as the year the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the globe and brought death, illness, isolation, and economic hardship. It will also be noted as the year when the death of George Floyd and the words “I can’t breathe” ignited in the United States and many other parts of the world a period of reckoning with racism, inequality, and the unresolved burdens of history.

The history books will also record that 2020 marked 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment in America, intended to guarantee a vote for all women, not denied or abridged on the basis of sex.

This is an important milestone and the continuing movement for gender equality owes much to the history of suffrage and the brave women (and men) who fought for a fairer world. Yet just celebrating what was achieved is not enough when we have so much more to do. Instead, this anniversary should be a galvanizing moment when we better inform ourselves about the past and emerge more determined to achieve a future of gender equality.

Australia’s role in the suffrage movement

In looking back, one thing that should strike us is how international the movement for suffrage was though the era was so much less globalized than our own.

For example, how many Americans know that 25 years before the passing of the 19th Amendment in America, my home of South Australia was one of the first polities in the world to give men and women the same rights to participate in their democracies? South Australia led Australia and became a global leader in legislating universal suffrage and candidate eligibility over 125 years ago.

This extraordinary achievement was not an easy one. There were three unsuccessful attempts to gain equal voting rights for women in South Australia, in the face of relentless opposition. But South Australia’s suffragists—including the Women’s Suffrage League and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, as well as remarkable women like Catherine Helen Spence, Mary Lee, and Elizabeth Webb Nicholls—did not get dispirited but instead continued to campaign, persuade, and cajole. They gathered a petition of 11,600 signatures, stuck it together page by page so that it measured around 400 feet in length, and presented it to Parliament.

The Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Bill was finally introduced on July 4, 1894, leading to heated debate both within the houses of Parliament, and outside in society and the media. Demonstrating that some things in Parliament never change, campaigner Mary Lee observed as the bill proceeded to committee stage “that those who had the least to say took the longest time to say it.” 1

The Bill finally passed on December 18, 1894, by 31 votes to 14 in front of a large crowd of women.

In 1897, Catherine Helen Spence became the first woman to stand as a political candidate in South Australia.

South Australia’s victory led the way for the rest of the colonies, in the process of coming together to create a federated Australia, to fight for voting rights for women across the entire nation. Women’s suffrage was in effect made a precondition to federation in 1901, with South Australia insisting on retaining the progress that had already been made. 2 South Australian Muriel Matters, and Vida Goldstein—a woman from the Australian state of Victoria—are just two of the many who fought to ensure that when Australia became a nation, the right of women to vote and stand for Parliament was included.

Australia’s remarkable progressiveness was either envied, or feared, by the rest of the world. Sociologists and journalists traveled to Australia to see if the worst fears of the critics of suffrage would be realised.

In 1902, Vida Goldstein was invited to meet President Theodore Roosevelt—the first Australian to ever meet a U.S. president in the White House. With more political rights than any American woman, Goldstein was a fascinating visitor. In fact, President Roosevelt told Goldstein: “I’ve got my eye on you down in Australia.” 3

Goldstein embarked on many other journeys around the world in the name of suffrage, and ran five times for Parliament, emphasising “the necessity of women putting women into Parliament to secure the reforms they required.” 4

Muriel Matters went on to join the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. In 1908 she became the first woman to speak in the British House of Commons in London—not by invitation, but by chaining herself to the grille that obscured women’s views of proceedings in the Houses of Parliament. After effectively cutting her off the grille, she was dragged out of the gallery by force, still shouting and advocating for votes for women. The U.K. finally adopted women’s suffrage in 1928.

These Australian women, and the many more who tirelessly fought for women’s rights, are still extraordinary by today’s standards, but were all the more remarkable for leading the rest of the world.

A shared history of exclusion

Of course, no history of women’s suffrage is complete without acknowledging those who were excluded. These early movements for gender equality were overwhelmingly the remit of privileged white women. Racially discriminatory exclusivity during the early days of suffrage is a legacy Australia shares with the United States.

South Australian Aboriginal women were given the right to vote under the colonial laws of 1894, but they were often not informed of this right or supported to enroll—and sometimes were actively discouraged from participating.

They were later further discriminated against by direct legal bar by the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act, whereby Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were excluded from voting in federal elections—a right not given until 1962.

Any celebration of women’s suffrage must acknowledge such past injustices front and center. Australia is not alone in the world in grappling with a history of discrimination and exclusion.

The best historical celebrations do not present a triumphalist version of the past or convey a sense that the fight for equality is finished. By reflecting on our full history, these celebrations allow us to come together, find new energy, and be inspired to take the cause forward in a more inclusive way.

The way forward

In the century or more since winning women’s franchise around the world, we have made great strides toward gender equality for women in parliamentary politics. Targets and quotas are working. In Australia, we already have evidence that affirmative action targets change the diversity of governments. Since the Australian Labor Party (ALP) passed its first affirmative action resolution in 1994, the party has seen the number of women in its national parliamentary team skyrocket from around 14% to 50% in recent years.

Instead of trying to “fix” women—whether by training or otherwise—the ALP worked on fixing the structures that prevent women getting preselected, elected, and having fair opportunities to be leaders.

There is also clear evidence of the benefits of having more women in leadership roles. A recent report from Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL) at King’s College London, shows that where women are able to exercise political leadership, it benefits not just women and girls, but the whole of society.

But even though we know how to get more women into parliament and the positive difference they make, progress toward equality is far too slow. The World Economic Forum tells us that if we keep progressing as we are, the global political empowerment gender gap—measuring the presence of women across Parliament, ministries, and heads of states across the world— will only close in another 95 years . This is simply too long to wait and, unfortunately, not all barriers are diminishing. The level of abuse and threatening language leveled at high-profile women in the public domain and on social media is a more recent but now ubiquitous problem, which is both alarming and unacceptable.

Across the world, we must dismantle the continuing legal and social barriers that prevent women fully participating in economic, political, and community life.

Education continues to be one such barrier in many nations. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. With COVID-19-related school closures happening in developing countries, there is a real risk that progress on girls’ education is lost. When Ebola hit, the evidence shows that the most marginalized girls never made it back to school and rates of child marriage, teen pregnancy. and child labor soared. The Global Partnership for Education, which I chair, is currently hard at work trying to ensure that this history does not repeat.

Ensuring educational equality is a necessary but not sufficient condition for gender equality. In order to change the landscape to remove the barriers that prevent women coming through for leadership—and having their leadership fairly evaluated rather than through the prism of gender—we need a radical shift in structures and away from stereotypes. Good intentions will not be enough to achieve the profound wave of change required. We need hard-headed empirical research about what works. In my life and writings post-politics and through my work at the GIWL, sharing and generating this evidence is front and center of the work I do now.

GIWL work, undertaken in partnership with IPSOS Mori, demonstrates that the public knows more needs to be done. For example, this global polling shows the community thinks it is harder for women to get ahead. Specifically, they say men are less likely than women to need intelligence and hard work to get ahead in their careers.

Other research demonstrates that the myth of the “ideal worker,” one who works excessive hours, is damaging for women’s careers. We also know from research that even in families where each adult works full time, domestic and caring labor is disproportionately done by women. 5

In order to change the landscape to remove the barriers that prevent women coming through for leadership—and having their leadership fairly evaluated rather than through the prism of gender—we need a radical shift in structures and away from stereotypes.

Other more subtle barriers, like unconscious bias and cultural stereotypes, continue to hold women back. We need to start implementing policies that prevent people from being marginalized and stop interpreting overconfidence or charisma as indicative of leadership potential. The evidence shows that it is possible for organizations to adjust their definitions and methods of identifying merit so they can spot, measure, understand, and support different leadership styles.

Taking the lessons learned from our shared history and the lives of the extraordinary women across the world, we know evidence needs to be combined with activism to truly move forward toward a fairer world. We are in a battle for both hearts and minds.

Why this year matters

We are also at an inflection point. Will 2020 will be remembered as the year that a global recession disproportionately destroyed women’s jobs, while women who form the majority of the workforce in health care and social services were at risk of contracting the coronavirus? Will it be remembered as a time of escalating domestic violence and corporations cutting back on their investments in diversity programs?

Or is there a more positive vision of the future that we can seize through concerted advocacy and action? A future where societies re-evaluate which work truly matters and determine to better reward carers. A time when men and women forced into lockdowns re-negotiated how they approach the division of domestic labor. Will the pandemic be viewed as the crisis that, through forcing new ways of virtual working, ultimately led to more balance between employment and family life, and career advancement based on merit and outcomes, not presentism and the old boys’ network?

This history is not yet written. We still have an opportunity to make it happen. Surely the women who led the way 100 years ago can inspire us to seize this moment and create that better, more gender equal future.

• December 7,1894: Welcome home meeting for Catherine Helen Spence at the Café de Paris. [ Register , Dec, 19, 1894 ]
• Clare Wright, You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World , (Text Publishing, 2018).
• Janette M. Bomford, That Dangerous and Persuasive Woman, (Melbourne University Press, 1993)
• Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences, (Icon Books, 2010)

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series.  Learn more about the series and read published work »

About the Author

Julia gillard, distinguished fellow – global economy and development, center for universal education.

Gillard is a distinguished fellow with the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She is the Inaugural Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London. Gillard also serves as Chair of the Global Partnership for Education, which is dedicated to expanding access to quality education worldwide and is patron of CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education.

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Examples of the Marginalization of Women and Girls

Enjoy a new round-up of examples in which men = people and women = women.  The tendency to include women as a special type of human being, alongside men who get to be regular people, is a specific example of a more general phenomenon in which some people, but not others, are marked as a specific kind.  We see this with race, routinely, in cases where there are “people” and “black people,” “families” and “ethnic families,” or when the skin tone of white people is substituted for the very idea of “skin” tone .  And we’ve covered many examples of this in regards to gender; see our posts on the Body Worlds exhibits , avatars ,  fitness equipment , rulers , and this collection of many additional examples .  Here is a new set of instances submitted by our Readers:

Michelle P. took this photo of two card games in Salem, MA at The House of the Seven Gables gift shop:

froodian sent along a set of guitar straps for sale.  There are “guitar straps,” “giggin for god guitar straps,” “kids guitar straps,” and “girls’ guitar straps” in pink, purple, and baby blue:

Sarah J. noted that the website www.healthcare.gov features sections (along the bottom) for “healthy individuals,” “individuals with health conditions,” and “women”:

Finally,  Leigh sent along Technorati’s odd effort to appeal to women. Their main site has a highlighted yellow tab to press if you’re female, labeled “women.”  And, if you do, you get girly content, plus pretty flowers!

The main site:

The woman site:

Comments 72

Kaileyverse — april 24, 2011.

This is why we still need feminism.

Mazarine — April 24, 2011

I noticed that on the Technorati site yesterday, and I was frankly appalled.

They obviously think that women are all

2. Interested in breast cancer.

it's really sick, the way technorati is all, "let's throw them a bone" and make a website they think will appeal to "women" in general.

Why wouldn't women be interested in sports? In writing? In Music? In art? In just about anything that men would be interested in?

Way to go Technorati. Your flaccid site is very toilet.

Anonymous — April 24, 2011

To be fair, the Health Care example isn't quite the same.

Women face very different challenges in health care in the US, especially in regards to pregnancy.

Under the 'women' section on that site it addresses concerns such as women being denied coverage due to previous pregnancies and paying higher health care costs because of pregnancies. Men have no comparable issues.

http://www.healthcare.gov/foryou/women/index.html

There's a difference between women being considered as lesser or as something less notable than men, and separating men and women based on biological facts and issues that are exclusive to one gender. The healthcare.gov site does bring up very real issues of discrimination against women, but it does so in an effort to combat it and protect women from further discrimination.

J — April 24, 2011

Why there are so many magazines for females than for males? They are probably doing that for "commercial reasons" rather than "social discrimination." They did it because "girls" want it.

James — April 24, 2011

What I think, is that the "women" section was created by thinking of giving women a fair representation in the site. I don't see men as interested in the health issues particular to our sex (prostate cancer, what else?) as much as women do (pregnancy, breast cancer, vaginal infections).

So these people were thinking of giving fair treatment to women, not of differentiating them from "normal people" through some obscure deconstructivist sexist spell.

Sunny — April 24, 2011

Also, science pretty much ignored research on women for a long time, and now that we know the particulars of how diseases effect women specifically, it seems a good idea to highlight it. For example, when looking for the symptoms of a heart attack, you will find that many sites give generalized symptoms (left arm pain, chest tightness, etc.) which are the symptoms common to men, but could happen in women. Now we know that women can experience heart attacks very differently from men, and very often do. Is it really that bad to have a special place to put that information, since we didn't even have it for such a long time?

PJ — April 24, 2011

And don't you wonder why something like a guitar strap has to be labeled as a "girl's" guitar strap because it's pink? I am fairly certain that there are some boys out there who would LOVE a pink guitar strap!

thewhatifgirl — April 24, 2011

In regards to the health section, the idea that women have unique health needs and therefore need a different health section doesn't even hold up. Women are half of the entire human race; our needs are not unique, they are universal for one half of the human race. The idea that a uterus and ovaries must force a person to be considered divisible and separate from "normal people", and that "normal people" are assumed to be male, is the issue here, not the idea that different body parts require different types of health care.

Luna — April 24, 2011

Obviously there's a lot to be said about the issues and problems here, but I wanna point out that I own the "authors" deck, and there are two women in it.

Karyn — April 24, 2011

Anyone else find it weird that the image for "Healthy Individuals" is a white man, while the image for "Individuals with Health Conditions" is a black man? Perhaps not purposeful, but I think it sends a message nonetheless.

Why is it that I get really nervous talking to pretty girls and is that lack of confidence? | game for girls — April 25, 2011

[...] Examples of the Marginalization of Women and Girls » Sociological … [...]

Ekate — April 26, 2011

BTW,Can't men use pink regardless of their sexual orientation? A little bit tired of so many stereotypes! Growing a girl/woman was tough for me but I don't think "becoming a man" is easy either...what if we try to get rid of stupid colour schemes together (where possible)?

Mancao Joyce — August 11, 2011

   shaggggggggggggggggggggggggg

cutieeeeeeeee — August 11, 2011

its better that you can give some examples about marginalization........so that the readers should understand more about it.

Bellandr — October 21, 2011

So what's wrong with a guitar strap that says "Giggin for God"?

The default human — March 13, 2012

[...] (or comediennes), as if being female means that you need a rider to describe you.  There are authors and “women authors” because authors are male by default. And of course, in the same vein as that last link there are [...]

kay — January 8, 2014

The game called "Authors" has male and female authors in it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1572814454/ref=mw_dp_mdsc?dsc=1

Marginalization and Gender – Rethinking "Reality" — February 22, 2015

[…] Lisa Wade professor of sociology, best describes marginalization as “the tendency to include women as […]

Dudecommon — January 25, 2017

Realize how all the comments are from women

Lesson 23: Conflict, Cohesion and Inequality | HSP3C with Ms. Maharaj — April 21, 2017

[…] https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/04/24/35201/comment-page-1/ […]

Calafia — January 29, 2019

Psssst...it's this really strange thing called "market-ing". Target marketing, niche marketing, whatever you want to call it. I think that really IS it. I'm a woman of color, and we are the new feminists. So look out world, it's about to get real interesting ;-).

Jane — February 2, 2019

I'm a mature woman; mother, grandmother, widow, divorcee. I definitely have different issues in my life than a man does. And while we might share some common interests, we are each unique. Physically, emotionally mentally. Maybe all this anger and resentment could be solved by simply adding the label "men" to a column/tab and including generalized sports and political topics in the women's sections. Why are some women so threatened or angry being called a woman or being given something specifically for women? Don't you know how special you are? Women have run the world since the beginning of time. Wasn't it Eve who talked Adam into eating the apple? We are not victims, ladies. We are survivors.....no matter what size, shape, color or sexual orientation. Stop complaining about being treated differently as a woman. There's nothing wrong with being special. And you are.

rhods jog — March 18, 2019

NBA 2K19 APK OBB on PC

Catie — June 2, 2019

The most marginalized in our society are incarcerated women. I work with them and they are treated as “less than” in every possible way. Marginalization is more serious than last pink guitar straps.

Aleop8 — March 29, 2022

Games for you to play. Yukon Gold offers 150 chances to win $1 Million!

abel — May 18, 2023

Discriminatory practices and societal norms can restrict women's economic Mini Crossword participation and limit their financial independence.

Harry Smith — September 25, 2023

Powerful examples shedding light on the marginalization of women and girls. When it's time to share your own insights, consider collaborating with a professional ghostwriting company .

Jenni Morgan — December 14, 2023

Delve into a critical exploration of societal issues with Examples of the Marginalization of Women and Girls. Much like the commitment of the best book publishing company to spotlight diverse narratives, this compilation sheds light on the various ways women and girls face marginalization. Through poignant examples and insightful analysis, the title serves as a catalyst for fostering awareness and understanding. Explore the impactful narratives within, akin to the commitment of the best book publishing company to amplify stories that resonate with readers across the spectrum.

George Mark — December 18, 2023

Fantastic blog i have never ever read this type of amazing information. La Knight Vest

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Marginalization and Poverty of Rural Women Essay

Introduction, causes of marginalization and poverty among the rural women, recommendations to ease marginalization and poverty, works cited.

Marginalization and poverty of rural women is a multifaceted problem that calls for a multidisciplinary approach to be addressed amicably. It has its roots in the social economic and cultural settings of the rural areas. The situation particularly paints a grim picture of economic development in the globe given that the majority of the homesteads in the world are increasingly being headed by women. This is so because in many households particularly in developing countries, the husbands are often likely to travel to the cities to look for jobs leaving behind their wives in charge of their homesteads. The women are left to take care of the economic welfare of the households. This means that poverty bites women most as they are left to feed their families especially in developing countries where the families are quite large.

Marginalization and poverty have thus become common scenarios in rural areas particularly due to the cultural and traditional practices in these areas. In this paper, I seek to examine the causes of marginalization and poverty among the rural women. I will also attempt to propose a raft of recommendations to alleviate poverty and reduce marginalization of women in the rural areas.

Cultural practices and traditions

Due to slow pace of development, many societies in the developing countries still practice anti-developmental cultural practices that are still deeply entrenched in their cultures. These practices tend to conspire with other poverty causative factors to ensure that rural women remain highly marginalized. A majority of these traditions are largely skewed to the disadvantage of women. Some of these practices include: circumcision of women, wife inheritance, polygamy, wife battery and sex abuse. The practice of wife inheritance and polygamy for example marginalizes women in the decision making processes by ensuring they do not have a right to make decisions over their lives.

The cultural practices tend to inhibit the women‘s access to economic resources and services as a result (Rural women in IFAD’s projects, 4). Decisions over their lives and property are made by their husbands and relatives which exposes them to intense abuse. Circumcision is usually imposed upon them which expose them to early marriages and medical complications especially when giving birth. It also further tends to demean them in the society. The predicament of rural women is thus largely determined by customary laws and social sanctions imposed on them by the society (FAO documentary repository Para. 7). This limits the women ability to make economic decisions thus condemning them to marginalization and abject poverty.

Unemployment

The problem of unemployment is particularly rampant in rural areas especially in developing countries where employment opportunities are limited. In such countries women are the worst affected due to lack of equal access to job opportunities. Women tend to be discriminated against in jobs and even when given those jobs are paid less relative to men in the same job groups. The lack of jobs plunges women deeper into poverty by denying them an opportunity to earn a living. This form of marginalization drives them into poverty. They are thus pushed into the realm of housewives in the rural areas while their husbands work in towns. This renders them to living in deplorable conditions hence reducing their economic and social welfare in the society. As a result of lack of meaningful employment, they are left to engage in back breaking tasks in the family farms like tilling, household chores, and occasionally in wage employment in large farming estates to earn a living. This usually has an adverse effect on their health.

Limited access to education

In many rural households, women do not enjoy equal education opportunities with their male counterparts. Some of these communities treat education as the preserve for the boy child thus limiting the access of girls to education institutions. Many times the parents tend to give preference to boys at the expense of girls who are married off earlier at tender ages further marginalizing them. This ensures they play the second fiddle to men in the social and economic arena. The failure to access education denies them an opportunity to build their capacities in terms of knowledge and skills required to be employed and also to engage in the informal sector. These alongside other factors ensure they are confined to poverty. The lack of education also reduces both their economic and social bargain in life.

HIV/AIDS pandemic

As a result of cultural traditions and practices, poverty, and inadequate education women are the worst affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in rural areas. Infection rates among women have been observed to be very high relative to that of men. This further exposes them to more suffering due to poverty. Poverty and poor diets combined with the inability to access drugs reduce their ability to work hence condemning them to early deaths. These combined with this stigma associated with the disease especially in the rural areas cause further marginalization of women leading to poverty. Studies carried among the rural women in South Africa indicated that women are affected disproportionately in relation to their male counterparts (Amnesty International USA, 2008). This is because as a result of the gender disparity, they have no control over their sexual lives.

Famine and disease

The rural areas are usually prone to disease and famine which makes women particularly vulnerable as they are the majority in those areas. Their deplorable hygienic conditions and poor dietary habits place them at a disadvantage compared to men. As a result, waterborne diseases, malaria, and dietary diseases are quite devastating to women. Hunger, famine, and malnutrition also cause serious havoc to women because women head their households and are thus left by their husbands to take care of their large families. As a result of poverty, they are economically burdened thus can not afford balanced diet which exposes them to dietary diseases.

Poor accessibility to credit facilities

Due to the cultural settings in the rural areas where women are denied ownership to property, they lack collateral and hence find it hard to access credit facilities from lending institutions. This hampers their ability to invest condemning them to the cyclic constellation of poverty. As a result the marginal propensity to save is very low due to their low productivity. This is a catalyst for poverty among the rural women. Their inability to own property has the effect of marginalizing them in the eyes of men.

Poor organization and underdevelopment of the local market

The local market which is the key source of informal employment in the rural areas is usually disorganized and underdeveloped dealing a cropper to the rural woman. This denies them a source of income and market for their produce which is mainly in form of raw material from farms. As are result, women have reduced opportunities of earning a living thus condemning them to a string of unending poverty. The markets are also usually located far from their homes which makes them inaccessible.

Inadequate access to basic social amenities

Basic social amenities such as hospitals and piped water are inaccessible to women in the rural areas which put them at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in the urban areas. The women sometimes travel tens of kilometers in search of clean water and medical attention. In addition lack of adequate educational facilities hinders them from building their capacity and that of their children. The few ones available are beyond their means due to the poverty. This hampers them from advancing their knowledge and skills. It thus undermines both their economic and social welfare hence causing marginalization and eventual poverty.

Inadequate infrastructure

The rural areas also lack the basic infrastructure needed to spur economic development. For example, the women face difficulty in delivering their produce in the market as a result of poor roads. The areas are also served with a poor network of electricity which hampers development as a result of lack of energy supply. Telecommunication facilities are sometimes inadequate or unavailable altogether leading to poor flow of information which is a key component to development. Consequently the rural women are shut from the rest of the world and new technologies and products hence take very long time to reach them. This further leads to marginalization.

Gender disparity between men and women

The disparities play an important part in entrenchment of poverty among the women. The change in the family structure as a result of massive migration of their spouses to urban areas in search of better jobs has left women shouldering additional burden of providing for many dependents. This is compounded by lack of equal opportunities to economic resources between men and women. As a result, women have been placed at the receiving end of economic turmoil resulting to their heavy devastation. The disproportionate increase in poverty among women in rural areas in comparison to men reflects a feminization of poverty which hampers development of women (NGO Committee on Education, Chapter IV, Para. 1).

Policy legislation

Policy legislation should be enacted to allow women to take an active role in economic development. For example, it should be in a way that will enable them to borrow against their collateral hence enabling them to participate fully in investment activities along their male counterparts. This will help greatly alleviate poverty among the women. In addition to preventing marginalization of the women, the law should ban archaic traditional practices like wife inheritance, female circumcision, early marriage, and polygamy. All these tend to lower the position of women in the society which prevents them from advancing their social and economic goals. The law should also be able to protect women from sexual abuse and harassment which will have the effect of preventing their marginalization.

Promotion of girl child education

This will go along way towards empowerment of women by impacting knowledge and skills necessary for advancement of a good life. When women are educated they are able to decide their own destiny, make informed decisions, lead a hygienic life, and observe balanced diets. This leads to an improvement of the social and economic welfare of their households as a whole. Besides this, they are able to engage in gainful employment and also productive investments. Their families tend to live better quality lives as opposed to less educated ones.

Provision of social amenities

Provision of social amenities will help improve the social welfare of women in the rural areas. For instance, provision of accessible medical facilities will help reduce maternal deaths, child moralities and general improvement of women’s health status. This will help empower them further thus allowing them to participate at a larger extent in economic production hence helping alleviate poverty. In addition it will help them escape from marginalization. Education which is one of the key social amenities will ensure women are empowered to participate better in the social setup.

Provision of infrastructural facilities

This will help greatly in uplifting the stature of women in the rural areas. Such facilities as roads, electricity, and telecommunication networks will have been observed to have a very large multiplier effect on the lives of women. This will help open up the rural areas to economic development and hence creating employment opportunities for women. This will have an effect of increasing their quality of standards of life in the long run and thus contributing heavily towards alleviation of poverty in the rural areas.

Provision of affordable and accessible credit facilities

Easing the conditions of acquiring credit facilities will help spur economic activity among women in the rural areas. Microfinance in particular has been singled out to have a very positive impact on development of the rural areas. The resultant micro enterprises usually create a sizeable amount of job opportunities for women hence helping uplift their economic and social standing in the society. The employment opportunities also create some form of economic independence from their spouses which helps boost their household’s income. These then help ease the instances of poverty among the rural women.

Initiation of agricultural based programs

Since most of the rural women depend on agriculture, any project aimed at increasing agricultural production to ensure food security is guaranteed to these women is welcome news. This can be achieved through investment in the supporting framework e.g. physical infrastructure that is inclusive of roads, dams and water supply, and institutional infrastructure that includes marketing organizations and cooperative unions (4 th World congress of rural women 4).

Improvement of production technology

Provisions of cost effective and appropriate production technologies will help to evolve alternative methods of production that are higher yielding than the traditional ones. The modern scientific techniques in farm production will help increase the output per amount of input hence helping emancipate rural women from poverty and enhancing self reliance. The governments will thus be required to play an important part in facilitation of technology transfer to the rural areas so as to benefit the rural women.

Prevention of HIV/AIDS

Preventive measures will have to be instituted to curb the spread of the pandemic. Other measures shall have to be put in place to ensure that antiretroviral drugs are accessible at affordable rates so as to ease the effects of the disease on the rural women. This will ensure their productivity is increased due to the improvement of their health statuses. Further spread and new infections will have to be checked through careful monitoring and institution of preventive measures to check the spread. To do this the government and other stakeholders will have to ensure availability of counseling and testing centers, awareness programs, and availability of contraceptives at affordable cost to women.

Reduction of gender disparity between men and women

The long existing social economic disparities in power sharing must be addressed if any meaningful economic goals have to be achieved (NGO Committee on Education Chapter IV, Para. 1). The government should formulate reasonable micro economic policies to address the rapidly changing trends in order to rescue women from the growing poverty. Women ought to participate fully in equal capacity as their male counterparts in the formulation of macroeconomic policies. This participation will ensure that they have sufficient access to resources and economic opportunities which will enable them to achieve sustainable livelihoods.

Poverty and marginalization of women is a multidimensional problem that calls for a multidisciplinary approach to mitigate. All stakeholders need to be involved alongside women who are the main stakeholders. Alleviation of poverty among the rural women will call for equity in distribution of resources and greater access of women to educational facilities among others (Obeng 5). There is need for concerted efforts among the stakeholders to avail accessible competitive markets, rapid investment in physical and social amenities and ensure a stable microeconomic sector development in order to ensure sustainable economic growth and reduction of poverty among the rural women (Khan 1). The policy frameworks of individual nations also ought to be repealed to enable increased participation of women in economic development. Antidevelopment cultural and traditional practices and gender biases that are a big impediment to the development of the rural women also ought to be addressed amicably in order to eradicate marginalization of the rural women.

Amnesty International USA: South Africa: Rural women the losers in HIV response. Press release. 2008. Web.

FAO documentary repository “Asia and the Pacific region: Rural women’s equality challenges”. Regional office of Asia and the Pacific. Not dated. 2009. Web.

Khan, Mahmood, Hasan. “Rural Poverty in Developing Countries, Implications for Public Policy: Key Policy Components Needed to Reduce Rural Poverty”. 2001. Economic issue, no. 26. Web.

NGO Committee on Education. “Beijing platform for action: Strategic objectives and actions”. UN Documents. 2009. Web.

Obeng, A. S. “Women and Rural Poverty”: A Case Study of Kwawu South District of Ghana. African journals online Vol. 10, No 1 (2002). Web.

Rural women in IFAD’s projects: Women in the rural economy. 2009. Web.

4 th World congress of rural women. “United in our diversity: Working together towards the total emancipation of rural women from poverty and hunger”. Agriculture Land Affairs. 2007. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2024, March 15). Marginalization and Poverty of Rural Women. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marginalization-and-poverty-of-rural-women/

"Marginalization and Poverty of Rural Women." IvyPanda , 15 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/marginalization-and-poverty-of-rural-women/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Marginalization and Poverty of Rural Women'. 15 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Marginalization and Poverty of Rural Women." March 15, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marginalization-and-poverty-of-rural-women/.

1. IvyPanda . "Marginalization and Poverty of Rural Women." March 15, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marginalization-and-poverty-of-rural-women/.

Bibliography

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Intersectional feminism: what it means and why it matters right now

Date: Wednesday, 1 July 2020

Originally published on Medium.com/@UN_Women

From the disparate impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in communities around the globe to international protests against racism and discrimination, current events have shown that we are far from achieving equality. Trying to interpret and battle a multitude of injustices right now may feel overwhelming. How do we take on all these issues, and why should we? Intersectional feminism offers a lens through which we can better understand one another and strive towards a more just future for all.

Kimberlé Crenshaw , an American law professor who coined the term in 1989 explained Intersectional feminism as, “a prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other,” in a recent interview with Time .

“All inequality is not created equal,” she says. An intersectional approach shows the way that people’s social identities can overlap, creating compounding experiences of discrimination.

“We tend to talk about race inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status. What’s often missing is how some people are subject to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts,” Crenshaw said.

Intersectional feminism centres the voices of those experiencing overlapping, concurrent forms of oppression in order to understand the depths of the inequalities and the relationships among them in any given context.

In Brazil, Valdecir Nascimento , a prominent women’s rights activist, says that, “The dialogue to advance black women’s rights should put them in the centre.” For 40 years, Nascimento has been fighting for equal rights, “Black women from Brazil have never stopped fighting,” she says, noting that black women were part of the feminist movement, the black movement, and other progressive movements. “We don’t want others to speak for black feminists—neither white feminists nor black men. It’s necessary for young black women to take on this fight. We are the solution in Brazil, not the problem,” she says.

Using an intersectional lens also means recognizing the historical contexts surrounding an issue. Long histories of violence and systematic discrimination have created deep inequities that disadvantage some from the outset. These inequalities intersect with each other, for example, poverty, caste systems, racism and sexism, denying people their rights and equal opportunities. The impacts extend across generations.

Sonia Maribel Sontay Herrera is an indigenous woman and human rights defender from Guatemala where systematic discrimination against indigenous women has gone on for decades. Herrera has felt the consequences of these historical injustices since she was a girl.

At ten years old, she moved to a city to attend school, an opportunity most indigenous girls don’t get, she says. However, Herrera was forced to abandon her native language, K'iche', and learn in Spanish, which she experienced as an unjust burden for an indigenous woman, since it was the language of the colonizer. After finishing her studies, as Herrera searched for professional work, she immediately encountered racism and sexist stereotypes. Since she was an indigenous woman, some said that they only had work for her in the home.

“They see us as domestic workers; when they see an indigenous woman, they assume that’s all we can do,” she explains, outlining the ways in which she experiences compounding forms of discrimination based on her identity.

“Those who are most impacted by gender-based violence, and by gender inequalities, are also the most impoverished and marginalized—black and brown women, indigenous women, women in rural areas, young girls, girls living with disabilities, trans youth and gender non-conforming youth,” explains Majandra Rodriguez Acha , a youth leader and climate justice advocate from Lima, Peru. That marginalized communities are the most impacted by natural disasters and the devastating effects of climate change is not a mere coincidence, she stresses.

While issues ranging from discrimination based on gender identity to disparate environmental burdens may seem separate at first, intersectional feminism illuminates the connections between all fights for justice and liberation. It shows us that fighting for equality means not only turning the tables on gender injustices, but rooting out all forms of oppression. It serves as a framework through which to build inclusive, robust movements that work to solve overlapping forms of discrimination, simultaneously.

As concurrent, ongoing crises unfold across the globe today, we can use an intersectional feminist lens to understand their linkages and build back better.

Intersectional feminism matters today because:

The impacts of crises are not uniform.

Countries and communities around the world are facing multiple, compounding threats. While the sets of issues vary from place to place, they share the effect of magnifying pre-existing needs such as housing, food, education, care , employment, and protection .

Yet crises responses often fail to protect the most vulnerable. “If you are invisible in everyday life, your needs will not be thought of, let alone addressed, in a crisis situation,” says Matcha Phorn-In , a lesbian feminist human-rights defender from Thailand who works to address the unique needs of LGBTIQ+ people, many of whom are indigenous, in crisis settings.

In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the challenges of the virus have exacerbated long standing inequities and decades of discriminatory practices, leading to unequal trajectories.

Rather than fragmenting our fights, taking on board the experiences and challenges faced by different groups has a unifying effect; we are better able to understand the issues at hand and, therefore, find solutions that work for all.

Injustices must not go unnamed or unchallenged.

Looking through an intersectional feminist lens, we see how different communities are battling various, interconnected issues, all at once. Standing in solidarity with one another, questioning power structures, and speaking out against the root causes of inequalities are critical actions for building a future that leaves no one behind.

“If you see inequality as a “them” problem or “unfortunate other” problem, that is a problem,” says Crenshaw . “We’ve got to be open to looking at all of the ways our systems reproduce these inequalities, and that includes the privileges as well as the harms.”

A new ‘normal’ must be fair for all.

Because crises lay bare the structural inequalities that shape our lives, they are also moments of big resets – catalysts for rebuilding societies that offer justice and safety to everyone. They provide a chance to redefine ‘normal’ rather than return to business as usual.

Taking an intersectional feminist approach to the crises of today helps us seize the opportunity to build back better, stronger, resilient, and equal societies.

“COVID-19 has presented us... with a rare opportunity,” says Silliniu Lina Chang, President of the Samoa Victim Support Group, who has been advocating for improved services for victims of domestic violence during the pandemic. “[It is] a time for all of us to reset. Think outside of our comfort zone and look beyond to the neighbour that is in need.”

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History Through a Different Lens: Marginalized Women in North America

Recently, librarians at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library debuted a program called “ Reading and Crafting: Women’s Stories ” which aims to bring together the works of historically marginalized authors and contemporary crafting for an online story time and crafting circle. The first authors featured were Sui Sin Far and Zitkála-Šá, two women whose vanguard work revealed identities and attitudes of late 19th century and early 20th century women whose lives separated them from the settler colonial culture of the North American continent.

Sui Sin Far/Edith Eaton. Image from the private collection of Diana Birchall, granddaughter of Winnifred Eaton. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Sui Sin Far

Sui Sin Far was born Edith Maude Eaton in England in 1865 to a white British father and Chinese mother. Her family emigrated to Montreal when she was seven years old. Her father was in the business of smuggling Chinese people into the United States through Canada. She began working for a newspaper, the Montreal Star , at 18, and soon moved up the ranks to become a stenographer and correspondent. Eventually she began publishing short stories under the name Sui Sin Far during a time in which the United States summarily banned Chinese immigrants through the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The Chinese Exclusion Act was not completely overturned until 70 years later in 1952.

Sui Sin Far wrote extensively about the daily working life of Chinese immigrants to Canada and later to the United States. She also wrote about her biracial identity in works such as “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of a Eurasian,” where she discussed the implicit prejudice against Chinese people and the phenomenon of passing as white. She describes the evolution from being perturbed by her own identity to claiming all parts of it and being bothered instead by the ignorance of others.

Sui Sin Far can be found in NYPL’s catalog in a number of places. Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings , which includes the aforementioned essay and her most famous piece of short fiction, “Mrs. Spring Fragrance,” is available as a physical book. Her work is also available through the SimplyE app .

Zitkála-Šá photographed by Gertrude Kasebier, 1898.  National Museum of American Heritage

Our other featured author was Zitkála-Šá, one of the most important Native American activists of the twenty-first

century. She was a Yankton Dakota woman whose works were the first to bring Native American stories to a majority English-reading audience. Besides her writing work and activism, she was a translator, musician, editor, and educator. She formed, with her husband, the National Council of American Indians, which lives on today as the National Congress of American Indians, an activist group advocating for the rights of Native and First Nations people. She also wrote an opera, The Sun Dance Opera, which featured members of the Ute nation and is one of very few operas that deal explicitly with Native American themes.

Zitkála-Šá’s first publications were concerned mostly with her childhood, autobiographical stories, and retellings of her nation’s myths and legends. At the age of eight, she begged her mother to let her to go a Quaker missionary school, where young Native American people were “civilized” by white missionaries, because she was curious about what was beyond the reservation where she was raised. Her writings contain the tensions she felt from a young age between assimilating into the settler colonial culture and retaining her traditional culture. Later in life, she began writing more explicitly political works, including Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians (under her adopted American name Gertrude Bonnin) which exposed several corporations who plotted murders to steal oil-rich land out from under the Osage nation, atrocities documented more recently in Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.

Zitkála-Šá’s collected works, American Indian Stories , was republished in 2019, with a new introduction by Layli Long Solider. Other information about Native North Americans can be found using the NYPL database Indigenous Peoples: North America . 

These two women's voices may not be as prominent as they once were, but they should not be forgotten. Native American people are still struggling to have their rights recognized in the United States and Canada. Immigrants from all countries are still denigrated and have their rights stripped from them. The times that Sui Sin Far and Zitkála-Šá lived in are not so different than our own, and we have everything to gain by listening to their stories and wisdom.

Join us every other Friday to hear more of what they and others like them have to say.

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

Activist Wawa Gatheru on Championing Black Women as Climate Leaders This Earth Day—And Beyond

By Wawa Gatheru

Earlier this year, we saw one of the greatest environmental wins of the decade—and Black women were its unsung heroes. President Biden paused all new expansions of dangerous gas export hubs in the U.S., which experts have called carbon bombs . There’s been fanfare and criticism around the decision, but few have acknowledged how Black women made it possible through community organizing and generational grit. The job won’t be done until there is a permanent halt on new expansions of dirty gas. But to get there, we have to turn toward the women who are leading on climate progress around the country.

As a Black girl who grew up in the climate movement, I’ve always been perplexed by the paradox of representation in this space. While people of color are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, we are routinely sidelined and boxed as ‘victims’ rather than the leaders we are. This is particularly true for Black women.

Women are particularly at risk to climate impacts because enforced gender inequality makes us more susceptible to escalating environmental harms. Black girls, women, and gender-expansive people in particular, bear an even heavier burden because of the historic and continuing impacts of colonialism, racism, and inequality. And that’s why I believe these circumstances uniquely position Black women as indispensable leaders in the climate movement.

A few years ago, I came across a term that encompassed what I have always known to be true. Coined by Dr. Melanie Harris, eco-womanism is a theological approach to environmental justice that focuses on the viewpoints of Black women across the diaspora. An eco-womanist approach to climate solutions is happening in the underbelly of climate injustice in the US, the Gulf South.

I have been honored to learn from and be inspired by the Black women leading on climate in the Gulf South: leaders like Sharon Lavigne of Rise St. James , Dr. Beverly Wright of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice , Roishetta Ozane of The Vessel Project of Louisiana , and Dr. Joy and Jo Banner of The Descendants Project . I’ve heard firsthand how they launched educational campaigns, organized marches, rallies, and petitions, commissioned research, joined lawsuits, and challenged everyone from local lawmakers to the EPA—all to protect their communities. Step by step, they have fought polluters in an 85-mile stretch from New Orleans to Baton Rouge that’s home to more than 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical operations, earning the name ‘Cancer Alley.’

By Margaux Anbouba

By Hannah Coates

By Amel Mukhtar

The fight in Cancer Alley is for life, community, and legacy. Where there are now toxins poisoning Black families, there were once plantations enslaving their ancestors. It’s not a coincidence that two history-defining tragedies struck the same area of Louisiana—it is the same system of oppression and racial capitalism in different forms. And it’s no coincidence that the resistance to it calls on a legacy passed down for generations: solidarity, creativity, and bold leadership.

The fight is local and personal, but it’s also global and systemic. And failing to recognize Black women as climate leaders isn’t just a moral dilemma. It is a poor strategic decision for all of us to win on climate.

The same industries that poison Louisiana are also fueling the climate crisis. Last year was the hottest in history , and in 2024, we’ve already seen extreme weather events making this planet increasingly difficult to inhabit. Black and Brown communities might be ground zero for climate change, but our response to this destruction impacts everyone.

The women behind the president’s pause have proven that winning on climate is not impossible. Another world is possible and we can collectively build a better world for all. The organization I founded— Black Girl Environmentalist —puts that lesson into practice around the country. As one of the largest Black youth-led climate organizations, we are ushering the next generation of Black women and gender-expansive individuals into environmental work—cultivating their talent and creativity to protect our communities, and win the fight of our lives against the climate crisis.

As a Gen-Zer, I know how tempting it can be to feel immobilized by eco-anxiety or even climate doom. But we can’t.

We can’t afford to, nor do we have the privilege to. Every fraction of a degree matters. Instead, we must look to and join the leaders who, against all odds, continue to fight and win on climate issues across the country. The pause on dangerous gas expansions showed there is power in our collective voice. Black women have lit the way, showing that the power comes from fighting for—and with—our communities. The work isn’t done, but we’ve come too far to turn back.

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Marginalization of Women in the Society

Today, most women in the society are faced with numerous challenges and problems. Some of the major challenges that women face in the society today include gender discrimination and marginalization. Despite various calls by human rights activists and non-governmental organizations to abolish and eliminate discrimination and marginalization of women, there are still numerous reports that indicate that women are highly marginalized in the present society.

This essay will look into details the various ways in which women have been marginalized in the society. It also looks at the negative impacts that marginalization has caused on the victims. The last paragraph gives personal views and suggestions on how marginalization of women may be reduced within the society. It postulates that various approaches and measures that may be taken to prevent further marginalization and discrimination of women.

Marginality in the Society

Marginalization refers to the act of perceiving or assuming that a particular individual or a group of individuals do not have certain characteristics, qualities or traits that would make them equal to other people in the society. A person who do not have certain traits that the society considers desirable may be marginalized from receiving certain benefits in the society or may be excluded from being involved in certain social activities within the society, for example, employment or getting access to quality education. Individuals who are marginalized in the society often live desperately lives as a result of the discriminations and maltreatments that they receive.

Through marginalization, the society often sets certain limits which an individual can reach or achieve, for example in the workplace, women have been marginalized towards top managerial positions or executives positions in most large organizations. The society believes that men can serve well as senior managers or chief executive officers than women. Due to this assumption, women who might be more qualified than their male counterparts may not be recruited for executive positions in most large organizations because they are viewed as poor managers or inferior beings.

In February 2010, Oprah Winfrey stated in her television talk-show, The Oprah Winfrey Show that approximately one hundred thousand women in United States of America have been marginalized from various white-collar jobs and executive positions in most large organizations, including state corporations. Marginalization of women in the workplace has resulted into increased discrimination of women in the workplace.

Gender Discriminations in the Workplace

Moreover, marginalization of women has also resulted into dominance of men in the workplace. Today, many powerful positions in most large organizations are dominated by men due to marginalization of women from holding such positions. In my opinion, this has resulted into gender discriminations in the workplace, inadequate utilization of the abilities and capabilities of women and gender imbalance at the workplace. Additionally, most women who get discriminated at the workplace based on their gender often get demoralized and discouraged from working.

Consequently, they develop low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and lack of intrinsic motivation, hence may perform poorly at the workplace. This finally results into reduced productivity at the workplace which negatively affects the society as a whole. Marginalization of women in the society has also resulted into reduced number of female role models within our communities. In extreme cases, women who are leadership positions may also be demoted or dismissed from their employments without any solid reason.

In certain communities, especially in Africa and India, women have been marginalized towards educational opportunities, for example, girls are rarely awarded scholarships and educational grants. This has resulted into reduced numbers of educated women in those communities. Most traditional societies view women as housewives who should neither get education nor go to work.

In conclusion, I would argue that marginalization of person often results from various stereotypes and other preconceived notions that people develop in the society. Therefore, it is important for the society to avoid such destructive stereotypes and assumption about its members. As Oprah Winfrey states in her television talk-show The Oprah Winfrey Show , marginalization of women depicts serious flaws in assumptions that the society has developed towards women. I would suggest that the society should take the sole responsibility to ensure that women are not marginalized within the society in any way or manner whatsoever.

It is the responsibility of members of the society to guarantee and provide women with adequate support they may require in relation to employment, education, policy formulation activities among other roles. The society should make certain that the needs and concerns of women are fully addressed. Gender discrimination and other maltreatments that might be directed towards women should be highly discouraged, condemned and stopped.

Additionally, women should be empowered by providing them with adequate resources such as finances that would enable them start their own business. This would reduce over-dependence of women in the society. Women should also form professional groups where they can share their experiences on leadership and learn from one another.

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Marginalization is an Experience

How it works

Marginalization is an experience that has affected many people across the world. From one’s religion, to the color of their skin, to their gender, humans have been marginalized and oppressed over centuries for their god-given qualities. Gender marginalization has also made its appearance as a key theme across many genres of literature, however varies significantly in relation to the historical context and composition of a novel. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), a gothic, epistolary novel that centers around Count Dracula’s imprisonment of a realtor named Jonathan Harker in Transylvania, incorporates female roles that idealize extensive themes of marginalization of women in Victorian society.

Through the female roles Mina, Lucy, and the three vampire sisters portray, Bram Stoker demonstrates the appraisal women in the Victorian Era received when they met standards imposed on them by the patriarchal society, in contrast to the oppression they experienced in defiance of these ideals and their sexual freedom. Mina is a representation of the ideal Victorian woman, whereas Lucy and the three sisters represent the “fallen woman” in society and were oppressed for their unconventional sexual behavior. Mina Murray embodies an image of the exemplary Victorian woman. According to Lynn Abrams from BBC UK, the ideal Victorian woman was one whose “life revolved around the domestic sphere of the home and the family” and who had “evident constant devotion to her husband” (Abrams 2). Woman in the Victorian Era were suppressed to inferiority in society and Gonzalez !1 were manipulated to believe that their whole existence was centered around their devotion to their family, especially their husbands, and maintaining a home. Failure to comply with these societal ideals would result in their oppression and depiction as an unsustainable woman.

Throughout the novel, Bram Stoker characterizes Mina to have traits of the ideal Victorian woman, “ ‘I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan,’ ”(Stoker 83). Mina is portrayed as a very loyal, smart, and educated woman, however, she is only to use her skills to benefit and be her husband. Her commitment to her husband demonstrates her compliance with feminine Victorian ideals. She is not studying for leisure, but because she feels a commitment to do so in order to be suitable enough to attend to her husband and be “useful” to him. Although she is fully capable of being independent, she chooses to go by societal ideals and devotes herself to a life of dependence of and servitude for her husband. Mina is praised as the pure and perfect woman throughout the entirety of Dracula in context to the Victorian Era, but she still becomes subject to gender marginalization and oppression in Victorian society by conforming to male superiority.

Contrary to Mina, Lucy does not display the purity and characteristics of the ideal Victorian woman. Although Lucy was modest and supported her husband, her transformation into a vampire liberates her and she feels free to act on her sexuality. After Lucy is found by the search party of males following her disappearance and transformation, she calls out to Arthur in a seductive manner, “with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said, ‘Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me’… The thing in the coffin writhed, and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips… Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his Gonzalez !2 untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake” (Stoker 329- 335). Arthur is having a sexual experience with Lucy as he is killing her, but this sexual experience is only allowed in Lucy’s death and in her most monstrous form, accurately portraying how grotesquely Victorian society viewed female sexuality.

Vampire Lucy was too sexually aggressive and in 19th century Britain sexuality was repressed and looked down upon. Furthermore, as Arthur drives the knife through Lucy’s body, Stoker displays him a more positive and valiant light, representing the marginalization of sexual Victorian women and Victorian societies ease to dispose of such women. Critics, such as Caroline Senf, also suggest that patriarchal Victorian society sought out to destroy women who evidently displayed sexuality. Senf claims that Arthur’s murder of Lucy “resembles nothing so much as the combined group rape and murder of an unconscious woman” (Senf 167). Lucy’s “rape-like” murder portrays the marginalization of women who augmented their sexuality due to the Victorian anxiety that woman would become more defiant towards male superiority once they felt free to express their desires. Lucy ultimately dies and it is evident that her sexual change is the leading cause of her downfall and many other Victorian women with similar identities. Similar to Lucy, the three vampire sisters also represent the “fallen women” in Victorian society due to their sexual and seductive behavior.

Upon Jonathan Harker‘s arrival to Dracula’s castle, he encounters Dracula’s three vampire sisters and they are given their initial description as sexual beings, “All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips” (Stoker 58). The three sisters are portrayed beautifully and therefore Gonzalez !3 represent the body and the dream that exists only of the imagination of Victorian men. They symbolize the opposite of what an ideal Victorian woman should be, voluptuous and sexually aggressive, thus making them a promise of sexual gratification and a curse. However, the sexual characterization of the three sisters threatens to weaken the foundation of a patriarchal society by interfering with the ability of men to reason and keep their sexual desires under control. Furthermore, we are given a broader depiction of the three sisters in the eyes of Victorian society through Harker as he comes into physical contact with the, “There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck, she actually licked her lips like an animal…I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited–waited with beating heart” (Stoker 59-60).

Harker is both intrigued and disgusted by their sexuality. He finds them “repulsive,” yet keeps wishing for sexual gratification from them and therefore sees them as a threat to his composure and dominance. Harker then begins to compare the three sisters to Mina, the ideal Victorian woman, “I am alone in the castle with those horrible women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!” (Stoker 82). His description of them as “monsters,” “horrible women,” and “devils” in contrast to Mina furthermore demonstrates the marginalization of Victorian woman who demonstrated unconventional qualities, such as sexuality. The three brides refuse to adhere to gender roles by being sexual, which makes them both equally terrifying monsters in the eyes of Victorian society. These women, although beautiful, posses the wrong kind of beauty and therefore deserve some kind of punishment.

In their case it is marginalization, and like Lucy, ultimately death. Through Dracula, Bram Stoker demonstrates how Victorian women who expressed sexual desires were oppressed and punished by society. Mina, who demonstrated to to be a clear Gonzalez !4 depiction of the ideal Victorian women, still demonstrated to be subject to some level of marginalization by submitting herself to male dominance. On the other hand, Lucy and the Three Sisters demonstrated a freedom in sexuality that characterized them as monstrous beings in the eyes of Victorian society and that was considered punishable by death. While Lucy and the Three Sister are murdered, the lives of the surviving characters remain unchanged and they fail to come to a realization that their commitment to societal ideals disguises their own violence and sexuality.

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Marginalization of Women Immigrants

Introduction.

Marginalization is a social process that significantly limits specific populations in terms of access to personal needs and requirements that are available to the larger society. Women immigrants are a group of individuals who have been ignored due to their mute exclusion from society. Therefore, women immigrants are a diverse population that is marginalized due to the misunderstandings that affect the identification process and negatively affect immigrant women’s day-to-day experiences (Dillon, Ertl, Corp, Babino, & De La Rosa, 2018).

There are numerous aspects of healthcare that negatively affect these women’s well-being as the government does not have a fully-fledged plan on how to improve the life experiences of immigrant women. There is a need to reduce the struggle to survive among this marginalized group and provide immigrant women with more opportunities to gain access to proper healthcare. The current paper aims to outline the background of immigrant women’s marginalization and discuss crucial aspects of this issue in detail to conclude the paper with a plan of how care providers could overcome the marginalization issue.

Background of the Issue

In 2017, the total number of immigrants across the United States accounted for approximately 7% of the country’s population (Dillon et al., 2018). Women, hinting at the fact that there are many undocumented families with possible mixed immigration status, represent almost half of that immigrant population. Given that the number of immigrants is cumulatively increasing, representation of women immigrants is a national issue that leaves the majority of immigrant women uninsured and deprived of proper health care (Sabri & Granger, 2018).

As Sabri and Granger’s (2018) research also shows, approximately 45% of the female immigrant population is uninsured. The lack of insured immigrant individuals also impacts the number of uninsured immigrant children, even if the family is mixed, and at least one of the parents is a US citizen.

Current changes introduced into the US immigration policy are most likely to contribute to a reasonable decline in the number of illegal immigrants. However, the impact of the policy cannot be predicted at the time. The lack of coverage for women immigrants and their children may lead to increased morbidity, leaving the government responsible for the revised use of Medicaid and other non-cash programs helping immigrants settle down and gain access to the essential services (Dillon et al., 2018). Given the decline in the number of non-documented immigrants, it may be safe to say that the healthy development of the immigrant population is threatened by the strict immigration laws that are negatively affecting women and their children.

Economic Issues

This hints at the fact that workforce participation among immigrant women are hindered by both visible and invisible challenges, which may include (but not be limited to) underappreciation, the lack of work-life balance, societal pressure, and other barriers. Limited English proficiency significantly reduces the amount of income for women immigrants as they also get deprived of access to adequate legal status. As Abuelezam and Fontenot (2017) suggest, professional occupations and managerial positions are almost unavailable to women immigrants as they only obtain related positions in approximately 20% of the cases due to critical misrepresentation.

The trend of economic marginalization also continues among that 20 % of women immigrants who were able to attain a managerial position as they do not receive a respectable wage that would respond to the basic needs of women immigrant population. This forces immigrant women to pick transportation and production jobs that are known for smaller wages, lack of respect for the labor, and inadequate employment requirements (Vu, Azmat, Radejko, & Padela, 2016). Compared to the US-born women, their immigrant counterparts have to pass on office, and administrative support jobs as the majority of them are taken by the local women who might not even have the required qualifications except for being a US citizen.

Social Justice Issues

As a social justice phenomenon, women immigrants are having issues that are related to the post-immigration stage, primarily due to the lack of understanding from the local population and their ultimate reluctance to helping the immigrants to settle. Social justice aspects, therefore, determine the future health trends and cultural identity of women immigrants because the US society responds to the issue of immigrant marginalization in a variety of ways that range from positive to entirely negative (Goodman, Vesely, Letiecq, & Cleaveland, 2017). For instance, women immigrants could be deprived of certain services or stigmatized owing to the cultural stereotypes and challenges associated with the process of acculturation.

In order to facilitate the process of overcoming challenges presented above, immigrant women have to improve their social position by building a unique social network, which they could use for social support and empowerment (Goodman et al., 2017). The biggest disadvantages immigrant women may experience due to racism, victimization, and the unwillingness of the local population to approve of the given immigrant’s socioeconomic status. Social justice may also relate to miscommunication, the lack of structural support for immigrants, and psychological barriers affecting women immigrants both mentally and physically, leaving them marginalized.

Ethical Issues

Since the updated regulations on immigration, the US experienced the advent of several ethical issues related to the marginalization of women immigrants. First of all, it is the threat of detention, which is ultimately affecting women with children the most (Vu et al., 2016). On the other hand, if a person is undocumented, they will have to find a solution to the issue of receiving high-quality care despite being illegitimate.

For immigrant women, this raises the concern of how they could evade harmful consequences despite being marginalized and deprived of proper healthcare. Therefore, immigrant women are continually putting in danger those care providers who choose to help them, as care delivery to immigrants is illegal (Goodman et al., 2017). There are practically no workarounds for these ethical issues as the majority of immigrant women are too afraid to uncover their existence to the government. It ultimately generates avoidance and unnecessary health issues that are more complicated due to the avoidance and marginalization.

A Brief Plan to Address Marginalization

Educate the community.

The first step would be to provide the community with all the required information in order to promote an understanding of how immigrant women are marginalized and why they need assistance in the first place. This would help reduce the prevalence of negative stereotypes and create a positive environment where income, creed, and gender would not shape interpersonal relationships. This will be the first step as it may attract more individuals to the problem of women immigrants marginalization and lead to the development of volunteer groups.

Foster Effective Partnerships

The second step would be care providers developing partnerships with the given marginalized population, allowing immigrant women to have a voice and let the community know of the issues that they encounter when trying to access health care. This relationship would become beneficial to both care providers and women immigrants as they will increase awareness regarding marginalized populations and start working on the renewed care provision strategies together. Patient-provider collaboration would reduce the occurrence of misinformation, promote accountability across different organizations, and give the marginalized population a chance to speak out.

Create Support Groups

The last step would be to create support groups for the marginalized population to gain more insight into their view of healthcare and how it should be provided to patients with specific needs. By including women immigrants into the discussion, care providers are going to ensure that there is a support system for a specific marginalized population that does not interfere with the process of providing care to the US-based families. These support groups would also serve as a source of counseling assistance for women immigrants who are suffering from different aspects of marginalization (such as racism, for instance) the most.

The marginalization of women immigrants is an articulated issue across the United States that has been amplified by the decisions that turned the immigration policy into a strict action plan with no workarounds and backdoors. The current paper outlined the statistics on women immigrants, showing that the issue is rather prevalent due to multiple aspects – economic, social, and ethical – depriving the marginalized population of proper access to healthcare. In order to overcome these challenges, the author of the current paper proposes to introduce educational programs for the community, foster interprofessional and interpersonal partnerships, and continuously build support groups to protect women immigrants from racism and misunderstanding.

Abuelezam, N. N., & Fontenot, H. B. (2017). Depression among Arab American and Arab immigrant women in the United States. Nursing for Women’s Health , 21 (5), 395-399.

Dillon, F. R., Ertl, M. M., Corp, D. A., Babino, R., & De La Rosa, M. (2018). Latina young adults’ use of health care during initial months in the United States. Health Care for Women International , 39 (3), 343-359.

Goodman, R. D., Vesely, C. K., Letiecq, B., & Cleaveland, C. L. (2017). Trauma and resilience among refugee and undocumented immigrant women. Journal of Counseling & Development , 95 (3), 309-321.

Sabri, B., & Granger, D. A. (2018). Gender-based violence and trauma in marginalized populations of women: Role of biological embedding and toxic stress. Health Care for Women International , 39 (9), 1038-1055.

Vu, M., Azmat, A., Radejko, T., & Padela, A. I. (2016). Predictors of delayed healthcare seeking among American Muslim women. Journal of Women’s Health , 25 (6), 586-593.

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Essay on shakespeare's marginalization of women.

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William Shakespeare has often been criticized for his depiction of women in his plays and stories. And for good measure; his plays' female leads are often antagonists, or at best secondary to their male counterparts. While this is quite simply a byproduct of the time in which Shakespeare lived, it nonetheless raises questions about the English author's ideologies and personal beliefs.

Check out this sample essay on the Shakespearean marginalization of women. It offers a great deal of insight into some of the author’s most famous plays, such as Hamlet and Twelfth Night, and comments on why the famous Englishmen chose to write they way he did.  If you would like to buy a custom essay  sample on a Shakespearean work or any other topic, consider working with a talented writer from Ultius.

The Shakespearean treatment of women

The depiction of women in literature has varied significantly in relation to the historical context and authorship. In writing many works that incorporated the roles of women in society, Shakespeare’s works have been influential in using women as scapegoats to idealize broader themes of marginalization and complicity. Mainly, works like Hamlet, Twelfth Night and The Tempest depicted women in a negative light with respect to how feminine qualities and sexuality were either tools of deceit or inherently negative facets of womanhood.

To begin, it is important to realize that Shakespeare’s audience reflected entertainment oriented towards males. Indeed, Shakespeare’s ubiquitous usage of sexual themes and plots defines the extent to which males are going to have a strong interest. Jami Ake argued in “Glimpsing a ‘Lesbian’ Poetics in ‘Twelfth Night’” that Shakespeare profoundly uses sexual themes in order to “solidify elite, male homosocial bonds” (Ake, 377). Essentially, many works that share sexual themes are tailored to represent a male perspective. These male perspectives work by personifying women as having traits that represent male frustration. One of the major themes explored that shares this facet is the concept of Petrarchan, or unattainable love. This theme is evident throughout Shakespearean works and very clearly depicts women as being the paradigm of male frustration and angst. 

Hamlet - Love as an example

Indeed, it is important to realize that Shakespeare’s personifications of women as deceitful are also based on the notions that love and feminine traits are painted negatively. For tragic works like Hamlet, this is especially evident as the main character is often portrayed as being weak on the basis of having female traits. For instance, his cowardice when walking past Claudius is indicative of his passivity, an attribute that is associated with women. In fact, James Stone argued in “Androgynous ‘Union’ and the woman in Hamlet” that Hamlet spent the greater portion of the play trying to rid himself of feminine qualities like cowardice, sexuality and desire through suicide (Stone, 72-27). Surely, in using male characters to characterize feminine traits as being negative dimensions of Hamlet, Shakespeare was subtly reflecting his attitude towards women and their role in frustrating males. Aside from using this character in order to depict women’s traits as negative, Shakespeare also focused on perverting Gertrude’s presence. 

Related Sample:  Read a sample on Hamlet: The Youthful Interpretation.

The portrayal of Gertrude idealized women’s roles as being that of sexual desire and the evils that stem from it. As Hamlet struggled to rid himself of his innate feminine qualities that he exhibited throughout the play, Shakespeare spared no mercy in depicting Gertrude as one of the more despicable characters in any of his plays. For example, Stone characterized Gertrude’s presence as having no limits to the brink of human disgust: “nothing is taboo, including incest, adultery and murder” (Stone, 72). Indeed, the role of Hamlet’s mother was that of a woman who married her husband’s brother after he was killed. The driving force behind Gertrude’s behavior could have easily been political, social or for another reason; however, Hamlet’s interpretation and Shakespeare’s depiction of the story based the event on Gertrude’s lustful behavior. To exemplify, Stone remarked that “Hamlet curse[d] the lust that hasten[ed] Gertrude to an incestuous remarriage, a lust that patently belie[d] her masking self-representation…” (Stone, 75). The negative connotations that are ascribed to Hamlet’s mother transcend any notion of her being a good wife, mother or family oriented individual. By being portrayed as driven by lust and desire, Shakespeare effectively illustrated that man’s frustration with women stems from their inability to reason and think critically without adhering to their personal desires.

Twelfth Night

In the Twelfth Night, women are portrayed in a much more deceitful and racy light, albeit much more subtly and without murderous implications. For instance, the whole notion of love is perverted in itself. While the Petrarchan conventions of wooing are followed directly by Orsino in his pursuit of Olivia, the relationships carried on the by the women and other character represent manipulation, seduction and power more than love. David Schalkwyk argued that the concepts of love and service are bound to this play because “power and desire-have replaced love” (76). For being a Shakespearean Comedy, themes of power and desire surely carry much more serious undertones. The much more serious dimensions of this play reflect Thomas Clayton’s characterization that this work is more adequately labeled as a “quasi-Dark comedy” (354). Of course, the darkness is in that the Duke is fooled and subject to chasing a woman while she is also being pursued by the Duke’s serviceman, Viola. The fact that the women stereotypically occupy roles of deceit and male frustration highlight the notion that women are portrayed in a negative light. The male audience is much more inclined to perceive this work as a story of male deceit and treachery as opposed to one of comedy.

Of course, women are also personified as being inherently deceitful and racy for the fact that Shakespeare introduced homoerotic concepts into it. Again, despite the story being primarily focused on being a love story of longing and wooing on behalf of the Duke, Shakespeare found an interesting way to negatively portray women by including what Ake remarked as being  “pastoral poetics of female desire in Viola’s conversation with Olivia” (Ake, 376). Because Viola was a woman, she openly had opportunities to display her emotional feelings towards Olivia, despite the Duke’s intentions. Again, the context of love, desire, eroticism and relationships are skewed towards being done in deceit, treachery and at angst for the male involved. Just like Hamlet’s mother practiced her desire in a form that made her look immoral, the same applied to Viola and Olivia’s relationship. The tendency for Shakespearean works like these to perverse romance and love exemplifies the notion that the author surely attacked traits that fall into the realm of womanhood.

The Tempest

In addition, The Tempest is another great example that illustrates the same perversion of core womanly traits and societal reinforcement of gender roles through literary depictions of women. Throughout the play, the notion of romance is used as driving force for driving critical plot pivots where the action takes place. However, the marginalization of romance, and simultaneously women, is a common literary trait of Shakespeare’s works in which women bear the pain of having love become a facet of tragedy or absurdity. For example, Katrin Trüstedt argued that “romance has…become an object of attack, a reference point that is taken up, transformed, and turned into something of a grotesque, absurd, comic, witty kind” (Trüstedt, 350). While this is a literary tool is effective in developing the plot and creating a more interesting story line, it is nonetheless indicative of Shakespeare’s common themes that he brings up. By consistently utilizing womanly facets of behavior and emotion like romance, love and desire for the sake of depicting deceit and schism, the author paints a negative portrait of women in which they are almost always subject to criticism and moral indignation. So, even while the character Miranda is depicted as being the paradigm of chastity and virtue, the fact that romance as a genre and facet of Shakespearean themes is perverted shows that women still inherit a marginalized role, one way or another. 

Whether central or secondary, romance or womanly roles are a common facet of Shakespeare’s plays. Even when love, romance and womanhood is not related to the central issue in the story, women are marginalized. The author finds opportunity to create problems or moral issues at the expense of women. This is analogous to a comedian making jokes in which a secondary theme or detail always oppresses a certain demographic. Nonetheless, it is indicative of the essential role that women did play in the aforementioned plays. Even when the play takes the form of a comedy or tragedy, women are subjected to personifications that express negative traits. Whereas masculinity can embrace many different traits and values, the final analysis of women among the plays represented a clear polarization in terms of broad literary themes; in short, women represent “the opposition between romance and reason” (Salingar, 120). Of course, the latter refers to logic, manliness and clear thinking while the former is indicative of clouded judgment, lust, treachery and womanhood.

Related Blog:  Gender socialization still exists today, read this post to learn more about it.

Even when utilized as a secondary theme, womanhood was ultimately degraded as a consequent. This drastically affected women’s roles because their behavioral patterns within the story did not matter. In effect, if the whole concept of being a woman is implicitly or explicitly tied into the play as a core theme, then it is irrelevant if the woman carries herself with piety and justice. The cultural connotations of love, romance and eroticism as being associated with the female sphere of behavior still taint the viewer or reader’s perspective of women as being in a negative light. Consequently, womanhood in itself is arguably attacked in almost every facet of Shakespeare’s plays that were analyzed. This theme would surely validate the former notion that Shakespeare catered his plots to fit the archetype of male audiences. By depicting women’s actions or qualities as explicit or implicit forms of negative behavior, the role of the woman is wholly marginalized.

What does this say about Shakespeare?

As we have seen, Shakespeare’s themes arguably suggest that his audience was catered towards providing entertainment for men. The strong use of sexual content for his plays was suggestive of love and desire as a central facet of his work. From there, the womanly associations to romance and love related to stories like Hamlet where feminine traits that Hamlet had were personified as being negative. Lustful depictions of treacherous women like Gertrude epitomized the notion of a sick and incestuous woman who was a character subject to moral judgment. Twelfth Night also utilized sexuality and male frustration as a core theme because power and desire were placeholders for genuine love.

Additional reading: Shakespeare also utilized dark Machiavellian themes in his writings.

These womanly attributes were then further perverted as Shakespeare introduced notions of deceit and homoeroticism on behalf of women. Either way, while this may have not been the central facet of the play, women’s roles were surely marginalized. Finally, while The Tempest offered only one woman as a testament of virtue and subservience to men, the theme of romance became an object of attack that still marginalized a core womanly attribute. The consistent negative connotations towards women throughout Shakespearean plays truly glorified the negative perception of women as an inherent literary theme .

Did you enjoy this sample essay? You might be interested in our sample essay on A Midsummer's Night Dream .

Works Cited

Ake, Jami. "Glimpsing a "Lesbian" Poetics in "Twelfth Night"." Studies in English Literature 43.2 (2003): 375-394. Print.

Clayton, Thomas. "Shakespeare at The Guthrie: Twelfth Night." Shakespeare Quarterly 36.3 (1985): 353-359. Print.

Salingar, L.G.. "The Design of Twelfth Night." Shakespeare Quarterly 9.2 (1958): 117-139. Print.

Schalkwyk, David. "Love and Service in "Twelfth Night" and the Sonnets." Shakespeare Quarterly 56.1 (2005): 76-100. Print.

Stone, James. "Androgynous "Union" and the Woman in Hamlet." Shakespeare Studies  23.71 (1995): 71-99. Print.

Trastedt, Katrin. "Secondary Satire and the Sea-Change of Romance: Reading William Shakespeare's The Tempest." Law and Literature 17.3 (2005): 345-364. Print.

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Many new fans are discovering women's basketball, but i grew up around women who should have went pro, by d. watkins.

Seeing images of college sensations turning WNBA stars Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark fill my timelines and appear on all the media sites I subscribe to was heartwarming. 

For the first time in my long life as a basketball fan, we are witnessing a major paradigm shift in women's sports – where the best women are treated with the love and respect they deserve from fans that hail from all walks of life. Now, there is still a huge pay disparity, that has been connected to TV contracts and ticket sales being lower for professional women basketball players in America, but with this type of attention from the media and the scores of new fans – I doubt that the days of women being paid hundreds of thousands, for what men get paid hundreds of millions, will last long. As we celebrate the surge in popularity of women's basketball, I can't help but think about those super-talented women who came up on the courts in the parks where I used to play. 

When I was coming up you had to be tough as nails to play basketball in Baltimore City. Many of the best games were on concrete, and you better not call a foul or you’ll ran off the court. Of course, you may chip a tooth or bust your head or break a bone, but at the end of the day those are small prices to pay to shine amongst the best, and we had some women who used to be the brightest. 

This was the early '90s, but keep in mind that the WNBA wasn't founded until 1996. . . . Most of the female players were never big stars in America.

Tanya, with big lazy eyes and sharp left hand, could cross anybody. Her step-back jump shot was lethal, and her only weakness was that she couldn't get off unless she were in a trash-talking competition. "When she starts running her mouth, you better not say anything back because she won't miss!" is what was shared amongst the dudes who battled her on the blacktop daily. You could say that Tanya’s mental game was just as good as her physical game and if you didn't pay close attention she would beat you with both. Lanky Lisa from Up Top was a fierce competitor, too, and I imagine she would have worked on her game more if she thought a future in basketball for women in America was a thing. 

This was the early '90s, but keep in mind that the WNBA wasn't founded until 1996. Other professional women's basketball leagues were in different countries, but most of the female players were never big stars in America. Talented women like Tanya and Lisa didn't want to move to another country to play ball, so they figured it was just something to do, a way to earn a college scholarship and maybe major in something that paid a decent wage. Tanya went to college, but came home after her first year, and gave her life to the streets. Lisa stopped playing basketball before she finished high school, modeled for a while and then started a family. Younger than both, Neka wanted to be the first woman in the NBA. 

The NBA was a pipe dream for all of us except Neka. 

I only thought I was good enough to make it to the NBA because I hung with Neka. Now, obviously, I thought wrong because I never made it anywhere close to the NBA. However, Neka was so good, played so much and played so hard that you just felt like she was going to make it. You felt like she was going to will herself into a historic situation and take control of a role that had never been done by any woman before her.

"Let's get it, bro!" Neka said at 8 a.m. or 4:30 p.m. before the sun started dipping into the clouds and at 8 p.m. when the lights popped on Elmwood Park. 

Let's get it, bro, meant, "D! Wake your jughead self up, and let's hit the court!" 

At 12 years old, we'd pick apart the adults in our neighborhood, destroy them in games of 2 on 2 after completing our workouts and then work out again.

Hitting the court with Neka wasn't just playing basketball; it was jogging around the park, running suicides on a blacktop – a challenging exercise where you race up and down the court, stopping to touch each line before going back, starting over, and advancing to the next line. Neka also wanted t o do shooting, passing and tough layup drills, so she drove to the basket and asked me to push her out of the air when she neared the rim. 

"If I'm gonna make it to the NBA, I must be better." 

"You better than every girl knows and most dudes." 

"Better than everyone," she’d shoot back. 

At 12 years old, we'd pick apart the adults in our neighborhood, destroy them in games of 2 on 2 after completing our workouts and then work out again. Neka was more skilled than me, had a better jump shot and was more aware on the court. Physically, we were the same height, except I was stronger and faster. When we did those layup drills where she asked me to bump or push her out of the air, I remember practicing the highest level of restraint, and still, even my light touches disrupted her shot. And she would do the same to me. I would hardly feel it. We both worked out so much, that a lot of competition in the neighborhood didn't stand a chance, and any attempts at bullying her because she was a woman or me for playing against a woman rarely worked. 

Rarely because there was one time where she was getting the best of a dude in a game to 21, and he started feeling her up in an inappropriate way. 

“Get ya hands off me!” Neka yelled. A few guys from the game and a bunch dudes from the bench rushed the court and beat him down hard enough that I imagine he would never want to improperly touch a woman again. 

By 14, my skills had increased, as hers did, too, except my physical ability continued to grow to the point where I could dunk. My dunking caused unnecessary friction, but still, together, we ran the courts — from our home turf of Ellwood to The Cage over West. And most of the dudes, especially the ones we defeated, had the same compliment about Neka's game: "She's good for a girl." 

When guys said, "She's good for a girl," it was meant as a compliment. To fully understand, let's use the lens of patriarchy. In understanding the rules of patriarchy, a comment like, "She's good for a girl," is the ultimate gift that you could offer a woman. To be compared to a man should mean the world . . . or so many men who subscribe to that culture think. Neka didn't care about being compared to men or women in general; she just wanted to be great, better than anyone else on the court. And she would achieve that goal again and again. 

Neka continued to work on her game, and as she reached college, I imagine that her dream of being the first woman in the pros grew further away. I was humbled, too, as I continued to travel to different courts and encountered more challenging competition. Making the NBA is impossible even if you are a man over 6 feet, practice every day and have started in high school and maybe even college. Millions of hoopers in the world with only about 300 or so odd spots. I should mention that Neka never grew past 5 foot 4. 

We were now in the late '90s, and the WNBA had been off to a great start with stars like Dawn Staley, Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Leslie. But they were at the top of the food chain, at the head of countless other professional WNBA athletes who could not earn enough off of endorsements and didn't make enough money off their basketball fame to solely live off hoops. Many talented women like Neka did not see a future and pursue basketball even after a professional league for women was created.

But this new wave of athletes is changing everything. 

The top women in sports still are not getting the same contracts as men; however, they are making a ton of money off of endorsements and the many other revenue streams available to public figures. When I look at marketing sensations like Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark, I think about how my great friend Neka could be doing that if only she had been born at a different time. 

Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to financially take care of the pioneers? Sadly, many of the women who paved the way for the current generation will never financially reap the benefits but deserve all of their flowers for laying the current foundation. 

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D. Watkins is an Editor at Large for Salon. He is also a writer on the HBO limited series "We Own This City" and a professor at the University of Baltimore. Watkins is the author of the award-winning, New York Times best-selling memoirs “ The Beast Side: Living  (and Dying) While Black in America ”, " The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir ," " Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised: A Memoir of Survival and Hope " as well as " We Speak For Ourselves: How Woke Culture Prohibits Progress ." His new books, " Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments ," and " The Wire: A Complete Visual History " are out now.

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