Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Women's Achievement

     While watching the video Mrs. Kingsbury's assigned, they asked if we knew how many women have been in power either as a president or a prime minister. I definitely knew about females in Latin America who had amounted to power, but I find it embarrassing that I was shocked when the video revealed that 50 women have had positions of high power. While the video illuminated the progress and achievements us women have made, my pessimistic side tells me that 50 women is really not a lot in the grand scheme of things and that there is still work to be done. Before Mrs. changed the homework, I researched Anna Connelly. She is credited for creating the first "fire escape" in the late 19th century. In 1887, she patented an iron railed bridge. Once people escaped to the rooftop, they could use the bridge to make their way to the next building and go to the ground within the neighboring building. After states passed laws requiring buildings to have an additional emergency exit in case of a fire, many engineers went to work trying to come up with a device, yet Connelly, a woman, beat them to it. As someone who struggles with math and science, I have the upmost respect for any woman who enters the engineering field. This field is dominated by men, and I strongly favor a change where women begin to be recognized as equally intelligent as men. This is why I have been wanting to watch "Hidden Figures." Not only were Jackson, Vaughan, and Johnson women but they were African American. I can only imagine the harassment they first endured. As Mrs. explained their roles within NASA, I could not help thinking of them as bad asses. I truly admire their work. I equally admire the stance the USA Women's Ice Hockey team took. Why are they paid less than the men? If I heard correctly, they actually have had much more success than the men's team. The same goes for the USA Women's Soccer team. I have watched videos stating that these women are paid so much less that they have to work 2 or 3 other jobs in order to provide for their families. This honestly infuriates me. Why are women's sports considered as second-class especially when they out perform the men's teams? You can tell the difference just by the advertisement made for the men's FIFA World Cup versus the women's FIFA World Cup. While the men played, you could not turn the channel without seeing a commercial highlighting their games while the women received less publicity.
     On the subject of sports, this is still a problem that occurs at Govs. The girls' teams are honestly treated differently than the boys'. For some reason the boys' sport team are held to a higher regard; more people show up to their games, they receive the most attention, and they act the most entitled. To be honest, it is the girls' teams that do the best at Govs. The field hockey team has won both an ISL and New England title in the last 2 years. The girls lacrosse team won ISL champs last spring. The softball has remained reigning ISL champs for the last two years; out of the last seven years, softball has won ISL champions size times. Yet, the boys are celebrated to a higher degree. This past weekend at the Lip Sync Battle I was grossly reminded of the work that Govs still has to do. The softball team got booed and disgustingly shouted for putting an effort into our performance while a group of boys stupidly danced to a song last minute and they were applauded. I was enraged but mostly upset and disgusted by the actions of the boys in our community. This occurrence is only an accumulation of the serious problems that pervade our school. This is definitely not how I want to remember Govs 

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