So I never did answer my own query from the OP, did I? Well, to do so, I think there's a lot of room for improvement here in this country and that that's especially clear when you think about the consequences of this pandemic. It's mostly women who have lost their jobs, and many of those who weren't laid off have had to "voluntarily" quit their jobs or scale back hours to stay home and take care of the kids since schools have been closed and there's been little to no child care available. Theoretically, fathers could quit their jobs instead to provide for these needs, but...fathers tend to make the most money, so it makes more financial sense for the family most often for the mom to make the sacrifices. The result? We're seeing an absolute explosion of exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses among women that have taken root among men to only a fraction the extent. Also, women were often trapped with abusive partners during the lockdown period, so wife-beating, rape, domestic violence in general skyrocketed. And good luck safely giving birth in the middle of a pandemic! Or terminating a pregnancy as a result when "elective surgeries" have been banned due to covid!
And that's all just been this year! On a more fundamental level, I could talk a lot about how we badly need free child care in this country, about our need of addressing the sexual objectification of female bodies in our culture if we don't want to keep hearing "Me Too" stories all the time indefinitely, about how serious the implications of our collective decision to redefine womanhood as simply a state of mind rather than a material reality could become in the next decade or two if we keep going down this road, about how socially obligatory beauty regimens aren't just expensive and time-consuming, but can severely restrict a woman's lifestyle options, and many, many other things too numerous to list here down to things like why women are still expected to forfeit their family names upon marriage despite how supposedly equitable the institution has become here in the Western world, but it would take far too much time and effort really. The bottom line is that while the U.S. isn't exactly Saudi Arabia, it's also not exactly Iceland either, and even Iceland has real room for improvement.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 03 September 2020
