Emily Wilding Davison was a woman who sacrificed her own life in the fight to change the narrow-minded, patriarchal world and the way society treated women.

Davison threw herself in front of the king’s horse in June 1913 to draw attention to the suffragette campaign. This strong, courageous and maybe even crazy woman died for a cause that she and many other women believed in very passionately. They believed in equality for women.

Davison died in the fight for women to be treated fairly, with equal rights and respects as their male counterparts. However, years later after all the hard work had been done by Davison and many other suffragettes, the issue of gender discrimination is one that is still being faced by women all over the world.

Today’s modern society is a lot different from when Davison was a young women. Women are no longer only seen as domestic servants needed for keeping the house and for raising the children. Terry Castle, author of the article Women’s Empowerment stated how “In the early 19th century it was ridiculous to think of a women being highly educated and having a career as only men were suited for the public working life.” Today, life for American women is very different.

Even though the role of women in society has changed since the 19th century, there are still visible examples of discrimination towards women today.

This can be seen in the article Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment, “Female truck drivers earn just 76.5% of the weekly pay of their male counterparts…on whole women earned only 77 cents on the male dollar in 2010.” These statistics show how women who do the same job as men are paid less because of their gender. This is unfair, biased and should not be accepted in today’s modern society.

According to the article Women’s Rights, “Women do two thirds of the world’s work for only 5% of the income compared to men.” This proves that women work just as hard as men but do not receive equal payment. Women feel like they have to prove themselves to men so they can feel accepted and equal as shown in the article Why smart women still don’t make it up the career ladder. “I have seen so many women work that much harder or have to prove the foundations of their work to convince the men in their workplace that they are equal.”

In the 21st century, women should not have to deal with nineteenth century issues like trying to gain equal rights and respects as men.

There is no direct solution to this issue. It’s more of a lifestyle change and choice that needs to be made by the American people.

Americans of today’s society need to change their attitudes and views towards women in order to see them as equals and treat them as equals for this problem to be fully resolved.

If people continue to be narrow-minded and ignore the issue at hand, this problem will only continue to grow instead of being solved.

Imogen Barwick is the Editorial Editor of the Spartan Speaks