Abstract

The U.S.A. is a male-dominated country for a long time, and there has been an indication of deep prejudice against women since its establishment. Even in the end, bias against the females has become a part of American culture. This paper analyzes origins of American sex discrimination, ways to change women's social status and some improvements and their plights, to illustrate there is still a long way to realize real equality between men and women.

Key Words: American women, sex discrimination, origins, social status, plight

摘要

  美国长期以来都是以一个以男性为主导的国家。美国建国之初就对女性有着根深蒂固的歧视心理。甚至发展到最后，歧视已经成为美国文化的一部分。本论文分析了美国性别歧视的起源，如何才能提高女性的社会地位，取得的成就和现在要面对的困境，阐释出还要走很长的路才能实现真正意义上的男女平等。

关键词：美国女性; 性别歧视; 起源; 社会地位; 困境

1. Introduction
The United States, the main representative of western countries, claims itself to be the most democratic country in the world. It always takes an excuse of “human rights” to apply economic sanctions to or to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries. We can’t help asking this question: Do all American people really enjoy equal rights? Of course not, there are a group of people, American women, who are still treated unequally.
Gender inequality is a common social problem in the world. In theory, American women should be equal to men in every aspect. Many tourists visiting the United States for the first time are likely to believe that American women enjoy the greatest democracy among all the nations when they see American women take part in various kinds of political and economic activities, even fight for the President of the United States. But in reality, a large number of statistics show that the American women, no matter how smart, are not treated as equally as men. American women have experienced and are still experiencing unequal treatment in significant fields. They are planned to prescribed roles, and do not work in the most important occupations, or earn as much money as men, or enjoy the same social status as men. Prejudiced social attitudes confine women to their traditional place---housewives, and women and men aren’t paid equally for the same jobs. Most importantly, either in politics or at the top level of business management, American women are mainly underestimated. “A woman is a rare bird in the executive room of a corporation, and a woman is an exception rather than the rule. ”