Election highlights gender inequality

By Absa Fall and Grace Pham

Staff Writers

Gender inequality has become more visible due to public discussion brought on by President-elect Donald Trump. His remarks have brought to light that woman are not being treated as equals.

Angela Castillo, a lecturer at San Jose State University said, “The biggest example of women not being treated as equals is the wage gap.”

The wage gap between men and women in the workplace has been a huge controversy. According to the Lean In report, women get paid less than men, and the gap is worse for women of color.

The report lists the following example: If there was a white woman and a black lesbian, the white woman would get paid less than a man because she’s a woman, but the black lesbian would get paid less than the white woman because she’s a woman, she’s black and she’s a lesbian.

On average, women also get promoted at lower rates, and at each of step of the corporate ladder, the amount of women declines. In 2015, 90 percent of new CEOs were promoted or hired from line roles: 100 percent of those were men.

Lupe Talamantes-Escobedo, office manager at Summit Tahoma Public School said, “It starts by being looked at equally.”

Ms. Talamantes-Escobedo couldn’t stress enough how important it was for woman to be looked at equally and to lead by example.

According to the Huffington Post, when Megyn Kelly questioned president-elect Donald Trump, she said, “You have called women fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.” Mr.Trump then laughed it off and said, “I don’t have time for total political correctness.” After that Trump framed Ms. Kelly as a “bimbo” and said that he “didn’t recognize” the comments she was referencing.

The sexist remarks from Mr. Trump have allowed a lot of men to think it is OK to say those things, but his remarks have also raised people’s awareness of this problem.

Both Ms. Castillo and Ms. Talamantes-Escobedo agreed that if 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had won that would have shown women and men that is possible to be successful as a woman.