Black women have historically been left out of feminist movements because white feminists believed that it would make their cause less plausible. Alice Paul originally didn’t want black women to march and protest with them, but eventually changed her mind—as long as they marched in back. Statistically, black women are not respected or treated with proper police procedures when reporting domestic violence and is cited as a cultural difference.
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34% of Transgender Women have been forced to turn to sex work to make ends meet because they have been unable to acquire a job despite being qualified and experienced.
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In early March, over thirty black girls went missing and the local officials in Washington D.C. were less than responsive.
When they were questioned about their lack of action, they said that while having 34 children go missing at once wasn’t normal, it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about. Twitter took to attempting to find these children when its government pretended their disappearance wasn’t news worthy.
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Latina women are paid 55 cents to the white man’s dollar.
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A majority of Americans believe that sex trafficking is not an issue in our country, but this is not the case with the epicenters in New York City and Cleveland. 1 in 6 females that go missing are sold as commodity in the sex trafficking industry. Yes, this is likely the fate of the 34 teenage girls from Washington D.C. who are still missing. Usually, women are kidnapped and die in the trade or narrowly escape with their lives and have to start all over to avoid being recaptured.
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Every year, three million women are forcibly circumcised after infancy in Africa. While it was made illegal in the United States in 1996, that doesn’t stop it from happening. While male circumcision has hygienic benefits and religious associations, female genital mutilation (FGM) was a practice that began to decrease the ability for a woman to gain pleasure from sex. Even outside of the emotional harm to the patient, it can also cause problems later in childbirth, depending on which procedure is done.
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Every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted, but an average of 1100 are convicted of sexual crimes every year. At my orientation, the Educational Theatre Company told us that 1 in 3 DePaul students are sexually assaulted in their time here and the national average in 1 in 4 college students. Women are not likely to come forward because they are often not believed and are often chastized if they don’t ‘preserve the evidence’ by showering or changing their clothes or waiting more than 12 hours before reporting the incident. Men are not likely to come forward because it’s not seen as a real crime in American society.
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Is it right that there is a wage gap between white women and white men? No. But it’s insulting to believe that this is the biggest problem we are currently facing. White women need to focus on all women being equal so we can bind together and fight as a unit—not a faction.