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More than 30 years ago, the United Nations (UN) held the first Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women known as CEDAW (Ramdas, Janus, 2011). Since that time, nearly every single member nation of the UN has shown its support for the convention by ratifying the treaty associated with the convention and resolving to work with other member nations to ensure that gender equality is reached across the entire globe. What is surprising, however, is that the U.S. is not one of the member nations to support CEDAW. It is one of only 6 of the 191 UN member nations to have yet to ratify CEDAW. For more than three decades, the U.S. has failed to sign on to the treaty, while so many other countries around the world have acted with conviction to end gender discrimination. The story in the U.S. is one where discrimination against women continues—most notably in the workplace where women are routinely paid 20% less than men are (Holmes, Corley, 2017). This paper will show that there should be more legislation passed to guarantee equal pay for women for three reasons: 1) CEDAW is widely popular around the world and shows how far behind the U.S. is when it comes to embracing gender wage gap laws; 2) guaranteeing equal pay for women would show on the world’s stage that the U.S. is ready to combat gender inequality which would give confidence to other countries—especially in the Middle East, where equal rights movements need...
remains stubbornly behind the curve as though it did not want to give up on its old-fashioned sexist ways. By refusing to adopt CEDAW and ratify the treaty, the U.S. is essentially saying that the laws it has on its books are good enough. Yet every other country can look at the U.S. and shake its head knowingly because the U.S. does not want to admit it has a problem. As Sommers (2011) notes, the U.S. has been unable to stand with the other nations of the world for over 30 years when it comes to guaranteeing equal pay for women: it is the backward child on the block still attempting to fit in yet never willing to conform to the standards that everyone else approves of and supports. Simply in order to be taken seriously by the rest of the world as well as by its own people at home, the U.S. should ratify CEDAW and support more legislation guaranteeing equal pay for women.
The second reason for more legislation is that it would set a great example to other countries who look to the U.S. for guidance. Countries like Iraq and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia look to…
References
Gould, E., Shieder, J., Geier, K. (2016). What is the gender pay gap and is it real?
Retrieved from http://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/
Holmes, K., Corley, D. (2017). International approaches to closing the gender wage gap.
Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2017/04/04/429825/international-approaches-closing-gender-wage-gap/
Ramdas, K., Janus, K. (2011). Ratifying women’s rights. Retrieved from
https://www.hoover.org/research/ratifying-womens-rights
Sommers, C. (2011). Feminism by treaty. Retrieved from
https://www.hoover.org/research/feminism-treaty
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