Today is International Women's Day. A day of celebration of both women in general and our achievement and for the trials we have overcome in bringing equality to both sexes. Basically, celebrating the feminism movement and what it has achieved.
But what has it achieved?
Well, a lot, really. We now have equal rights, more women in the workplace in high positions, equal work hours, voting rights, places for us in university-level education and the ability to have a career and a family. Which is, don't get me wrong, awesome. It's a lot of achievement to have in 90-odd years.
But we still don't have true equality.
Women are still not paid as much as men are, for doing the same job. Women are still outnumbered greatly in higher positions (eg: politics and executives). There is no International Men's Day celebrated as widely as there is IWD (though there is one, I did not know about it until I looked it up for this blog post). Violence against women is worse than that against men. In some countries women do not have the right to go to school. Women are still looked upon as weaker than men.
[In regards to that last one, the other day at my work - I work as a team leader in a restaurant - myself and another worker, D, were putting away our buffet tressle tables and I got the comment from him "Are you sure you're okay doing men's work?" Uh, yeah, dude, those tables aren't that heavy, just awkward and long. It just...boggled me completely that he accepted the idea that because I'm a female I couldn't lift a table.]
All of that means that despite a movement spanning almost 100 years, women are still not equal to men. Which in this day and age, strikes me as fairly ridiculous. But that's what it is.
So to all of those women (and men) who think that feminism doesn't have a place in modern society, or that the movement is over, I say that you are wrong. Because feminism isn't about burning bras or breaking free of being a housewife. It's about making sure that we are as equal as each other, that we have the choice to be a housewife or a CEO, without being told at every turn that we're wrong for choosing that path, or for being thought weak, or anything. It's about making sure that every woman in every country are all treated equally and fairly.
And we still have a long way to go until global equalisation happens. And until it does happen, feminism still has a place in modern society.
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Glad to see more people with the idea that the fight against sexism isn't over. Though IMO, women CEOs aren't the answer. They're just as likely to make money off paying working-women less.
ReplyDeleteHaha no, but it would still be nice to see a few more women making it in that fashion than we do now.
ReplyDeleteMy main point was more that it would be better if we could just see more women making it in general, and generally female CEOs are the main example used as a woman 'making it in a man's world', so.