Activity #10

Constitutional Argument

This is Susan B. Anthony's address in 1898 to her fellow Americans and judicial review about how she took a stand a voted in the Presidential election. At this point in time women did not have the lawful right to vote. Anthony stated that she did not commit a crime and only exercised her right as a citizen that is stated in the Constitution. She was one of the first women to take a stand and say what she believes- which is that all men are to be created equal, like stated in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Unequal

One of the points made in unequal reminds me of an event that I attended. It was about marriage and divorce in Iran. In this article it was talking about "wife obedience" and how a woman has limited rights within relationships. On the flipside, this article points out that in the United States, if a child is born to a U.S. mother and non U.S. father, the child obtains citizenship, but if the child is born to a U.S. father and non U.S. mother, then it must take the steps to acquire this citizenship. Which I feel can be contributed to how they gave children born to slave mothers rights. If a slave had a child, the child did not belong to the mother but to the master of the mother. To me this seems to be kind of the same situation.

She Who Believes in Freedom

Right now more money is being spent on prison systems than K-12 education. There are some disturbing numbers. There is a program being started to help some of the people that are incarcerated for non-violent actions by giving them access to schools and jobs and not to punish them for their living conditions or societal status. There are over 2 million people are in jail and we spend $41 billion dollars to house them. I think, we could compromise and allow some of the less severe crimes out for behavior or for schooling. But one thing I've learned from a relative is we can also start using the death penalty for more severe crimes. I think, if you are going to be jailed for life, then why do we need to spend our tax dollars to let someone sit in jail and have television and meals and basketball and whatnot. As for women's prisons it is also disturbing to read that we had 5 prisons for women by 1950 and then 30 years later there were 34 more added! We, as a country and community, need to help these at risk people to improve their lives before being put in a situation that would convict them to jail time.