Opinion Essay: “La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness?” by Gloria Anzaldua

Women and minorities have undergone a lot of problems in the past years as people tend to be obtrusive to their progress, and these include people such as the Mestiz as well as the homosexuals and it is their right to fight back.

One of the most important things to understand about Gloria Anzaldua is her background and why she talks about women the way she does. First, Anzaldua is a Mestiza, which means that she was born of an interracial marriage between a white man and an aboriginal woman. Second, she is a woman and she emphasizes the fact that it is difficult as it is for a woman to lie in this man's world so imagine how difficult it would be for a Mestiz woman. Third, she is also a homosexual, which adds even more salt to her miseries. She finds herself totally alienated from the world because of who she is and this is what she is trying to convey when she talks about her movement for feminism.

Women have always faced a lot of discrimination in various aspects of their lives. Discrimination on the basis of sex has been very common, as women are considered to be the weaker sex. The implications of this have been termed as what is known as the glass ceiling, which denotes an invisible barrier that the women face in the world. It is this glass ceiling that women are unable to cross because of sexual discrimination. The reason for this is that people have sincerely considered women as the weaker form of humanity and chose to exclude them from their conclusions because they thought they were helping the society by making it free of all weak elements. These ideas have been carried on to this day and are reflected in the discriminatory practices.

Many women are considered to be not as productive as men. When women talk about their equal rights in the society, they forget one thing that the ideas of their inferiority has so much been ingrained into the sciences by these theorists that it has become a genuine conflict. The centuries of work that has depicted women in such a way cannot be drowned out so simply and so easily. Sex and gender were issues that Comte addressed but he placed the role of women as being very unimportant from what it has sprout out to be today. The male is considered to be the more important of the two sexes and patriarchy was the name of the game. Women were not given the proper place that they deserved in the society and rather they were place below the men, which meant that they were inferior.

From the women's point of view, sexual discrimination is one of the most common and worse kind of discrimination that a woman can get. It can take many forms including comments, looks, suggestions, physical contact, demands for sexual favors, physical assault and the offensive use of material. All forms of sexual harassment are unwanted, un-reciprocated and usually persistent, and are regarded as offensive by the recipient. Many tend to think that a woman cannot do a man's job and vice versa. Although it is true in many respects it is the same type of work that a man or a woman does. So there really should not be any problem. But statistics show that women are much better workers for jobs like secretaries and typists. On the other hand, men are better at jobs requiring physical activities. Therefore a clash occurs between the sexes and it tends to hinder the effect of a peaceful official body. Women tend to be paid less than men and this creates a problem. Social scientists rarely get access to data on how organizations make pay decisions, for organizations carefully guard such information.

In lieu of such unwarranted attacks on women, various organizations, such as NOW, have been working to alleviate the problems of women in this world. NOW has been working very hard in trying to bring to awareness of the importance of the role of the women in the society. At the same time, this organization has worked to provide more opportunities as well as jobs to women. NOW has worked to put more women in better political places, have them get more education, giving women more business opportunities and have also lobbied to toughen the laws against violence, harassment and discrimination against women. The main aim of NOW involves providing the women with economic equality by providing them with security. NOW is lobbying very hard to make an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will guarantee equal rights for women. NOW is also working to provide women with their abortion rights, reproductive freedom and other women's health issues. NOW opposes racism and is also working to fight bigotry against lesbians and gays. They also want to end violence against women (NOW).

Thus, we find that as Anzaldua talks about the oppression of minorities and women, and especially those women who are in the minority groups, she is right in being apprehensive about how things would work out for people like her. In the past we have seen much unfairness being directed against such people but at the same time we have also seen them progress with their social activism. All credit goes to the people who are courageous enough to face their problems and brave enough to have their voices heard for a change to occur.