Sexuality and Gender Roles

The Delphy article raises several important points about sexuality and how the rules of sex are different depending on gender. But the most prolific argument the author makes is how ones' gender determines which social role a person will occupy, with the author stating that women are almost always have to settle for less in life due to something that was beyond their control, similar to how being born into a certain race will lessen one's opportunities in life. While this argument may hold in third world countries where women have no access to education, let alone advancement, it is quite a different story in developed western countries, which is where I disagree with the author. In the United States, for example, it is my perspective that women have as much, perhaps maybe a little bit more through means of affirmative action, opportunity as men. Discrimination against women in the corporate world is still hanging on, but on the whole, the playing field in the United States is more level than it has ever been. Women have the same opportunity as men to attend all of the elite universities and service academies, and indeed more women than men attend college in the United States. In addition, the amount of women entering prestigious fields such as medicine and law have been on the rise dramatically over the last 30 years, and it only keeps getting more and more equitable as time goes on. The US had a past of blatant discrimination toward women, but many of the wrongs have been righted in today's America, where the playing field gets increasingly level year after year.