Notes on Race and Gender in the USA: Women’s Rights[Notas sobre “raza” y género en los Estados Unidos de América: los derechos de la mujer]

This is the second of several multidisciplinary notes with one goal in common: to draw a much needed “bigger picture” on how women’s rights are faring today in the USA, while describing the consequences of withholding and/or slashing these rights. To achieve this goal we will present data from different studies as well as from the USA census, and we will proceed to examine women’s rights as a whole, by comparing data regarding maternal mortality rates, child marriage, maternity leave, domestic violence, and sexual assault, both nationally and internationally. Unfortunately, this note will show that the USA is performing poorly in terms of gender equality compared to other developed nations, with important socio-economic consequences both in the short and the long terms. The first note of this series focused on the persistency of poverty in the USA, especially when looking at systematically disenfranchised groups in base of their gender and/or race. Subsequent notes will look into women’s reproductive rights and, once again, the importance of the effects of intersectionality in American society.