When it comes to women's rights, the U.S. needs to work from the top

December 16, 2022 - 19:24

TEHRAN- The West is lobbying countries to pressure Iran at the UN over its alleged women’s rights record. It is worthy to focus on how the West treats women back home. 

Just recently, the United States led a resolution that terminated Iran's membership in the UN's Commission on the Status of Women. 

The U.S., along with its proxies has been launching a hybrid war against the Islamic Republic, by backing riots, violence, and deadly terror. 

Simply put, this is due to the Islamic Republic’s sovereignty, military might, and vast natural resources. Washington is also desperately seeking concessions from Tehran.

Its latest attempt has zoomed in on women's rights in Iran, despite the fact women enjoy some of the best positions at work and freedom on the planet. 

It is worth noting that (as with all U.S. anti-Iran measures) the facts Washington presents to the international community are packed with lies and fake intelligence. 

As the self-declared flag bearer of human rights on the planet, the U.S. has an appalling record when it comes to women and girls. 

Apart from police brutality and institutionalized racism against Black American women and other minority groups. 

There are too many videos on social media videos showing how white police officers use excessive force against black American girls and women. 

The U.S. treatment against women seeking asylum at the southern border has raised alarm and is something well documented.

Over the years, America's human rights record against women at a governmental level is not something much reported on.

And Washington would like to keep it that way.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, (GAO), a legislative government branch, however, sheds light on this. 

The GAO is essentially a body that coordinates with Congress, which is why some critics say it may not publish the facts in full. 

Nevertheless, according to the watchdog, women's disparities exist in different branches of the government such as education, retirement, health, military, and other areas covered by federal programs.

Gender disparities persist in areas like education, employment and wages, retirement, and criminal justice at a federal level.

Other issues of concern include maternal health, sexual harassment, and violence, which the watchdog says federal agencies need to more effectively design, implement, and evaluate programs by understanding the role that gender plays.

The gender pay gap between women and men persists in the entire U.S. workforce, including for federal female workers. But most of this gap among federal agencies cannot be documented in a proper manner because of a lack of information.

The pay disparity is larger for certain groups of women, including Hispanics/Latinas, Blacks, and American Indians or Alaska Natives.

Every year in the U.S., GAO says hundreds of women working at a federal level die of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth with women of color being disproportionately affected. For example, black women are more than three times more likely to die than white women. 

And non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native women were more than two times as likely to die as non-Hispanic white women.

The watchdog says federal data on sexual violence is not being presented clearly enough despite being so critical to preventing, addressing, and understanding the consequences of these types of crimes. 

It says the statistics provided are confusing and fragmented, which may obscure the scope of the problem and hinder the understanding of sexual violence.

Several federal agencies, the Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice; manage some 10 efforts to collect data on sexual violence. But these are different in target population, terminology, measurements, and methodology. 

Some of the data provided focus on a specific population that the agency serves—for example, the incarcerated population—while others include information from the general population. 

These apparent efforts by federal agencies to collect data with the purpose of combating abuse have used 23 different terms to describe sexual violence against American women.

According to the watchdog?, the data collected also differs in how they categorize particular acts of sexual violence. For example, the same act of sexual violence could be categorized by one data collection effort as “rape,” whereas it could be categorized by other efforts as “assault-sexual” or “nonconsensual sexual acts,” among other terms. 

In addition, five alleged data collection efforts, overseen by some agencies including the Department of Justice show inconsistencies in their definitions of sexual violence. 

Furthermore, the watchdog says these data collection efforts do not have publicly-available information as to how they register cases of sexual violence so that monitoring groups can understand the differences, which has led to confusing results. 

The watchdog? says information should be publicly made available to enhance the clarity and transparency of the sexual violence levels. Data collection efforts by agencies also differ in terms of the context in which information is registered.

According to the watchdog, the apparent efforts to collect data hinder the documentation of sexual violence, and the federal agency's efforts to explain them.

Likewise, problems of sexual assault against women have been leveled against the U.S. Department of Defense. 

For example, data from the department itself shows that reported sexual assaults involving service members more than doubled from about 2,800 reports in 2007 to about 6,100 reports in 2014.

Elsewhere in the U.S., women are underrepresented on publicly-traded company boards, which make decisions affecting the lives of millions of people and influence the policies and practices of the global marketplace.

American women aged 65 and over have less retirement income on average than men and are more likely to live in poverty. 

For instance, in 2010, 16 percent of women aged 65 and over depended solely on Social Security for income compared to 12 percent of men. 

At the same time, the share of household income women received from earnings was consistently lower than for men. 

Elder women, who comprise a growing portion of the U.S. population, have historically been at greater risk of living in poverty than men. 

American women are still largely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math. 

In addition to that, female students in engineering and medical majors also experience significant sexual harassment.

At two federal agencies (the Departments of Defense and Energy) GAO found evidence of disparities in success rates for women and men within certain agency components.

The watchdog says federal agencies must enforce Title IX—which prohibits sex discrimination, including sexual harassment—at universities receiving federal funds.

Women and racial or ethnic minorities are still underrepresented at the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development, especially in the higher ranks.

Recently UN human rights experts denounced a shocking and dangerous decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to strike down a nearly fifty-year-old legal precedent that has protected women’s right to choose to have an abortion, describing it as a serious regression of an existing right that will jeopardize women’s health and lives. 

Rights groups say the Supreme Court has completely disregarded the United States’ binding legal obligations under international human rights law, including those stemming from its ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects a woman’s right to life from the harmful impact of abortion restrictions. 

Meanwhile, surveys show a majority of U.S. adults say the country hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to giving women equal rights with men.

Among those who think the country still has work to do in achieving gender equality, 77% point to sexual harassment as a major obstacle to women having equal rights with men. 

The fact is the U.S. (in particular) has a long way to go when it comes to women's rights.

Instead of lecturing others and spreading false propaganda, Washington has a lot of work to establish rights for women.

It can start by tackling sexual harassment, inequality, poverty, and other women's rights at a federal level first. 

And then work on human rights between federal agencies and women in the general public, let alone those that work at government levels.
 

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