I was recently sitting in a class centered on the issues that men and women face, including social injustice, inequality and gender forces among other things. In the midst of discussion, I heard a comment that made my head turn: “There has been progress, so why can’t we be happy about the progress that’s been made?” The simple answer: because it is not enough.
There still exists a double standard in today’s society. He’s proud. I’m vain. He’s intelligent. I’m cocky. He’s outgoing. I’m forceful. He’s busy. I’m unorganized. He’s curt. I’m hostile. He’s persistent. I’m aggressive. What is it about me? What is it about women? Why are we second-class citizens?
I often hear people saying, “Women are equal now, more or less.” This is disputed by the fact that as of 2013, nearly two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women. Despite their disproportionate involvement in the minimum wage labor force, white women earn 78 cents to every dollar a man earns, with that number going down to 69 cents and 57 cents for Hispanic and African-American women, respectively. What if I were to tell you that as of 2014, women own only 1 percent of titled land? Or the fact men have a significant advantage over women when applying to highly selective universities, despite women generally outperforming men in high school? Would that change your mind?
Perhaps in media women are more or less equal to men; unfortunately, this also is not the case. A 2008 study of approximately 2000 advertisements from 50 well-known American magazines, including Rolling Stone, found that half of them portrayed women as sex objects. Moreover, 61 percent of women compared to 2 percent of men were hyper-sexualized in these images, with an additional 22 percent of women being sexualized on the covers. Men were rarely sexualized or hyper-sexualized at all. In movies, roughly one in three female characters are shown in sexually revealing attire and/or are partially naked, and less than a third of the women in film hold a speaking role. Looking into family-friendly films, 28.3 percent of women compared to 8 percent of men in family films are seen wearing sexy clothing and 26.6 percent of women versus 8 percent of men were partially nude. Why must we entertain family members, specifically men, with sexualized women during a family film?
Those family films, you guessed it, are made by men. There is a 5-to-1 ratio of men to women working on films with males narrating 73.5 percent of family films. What we see teaches us how we should treat others and most importantly ourselves. Following this logic, men ultimately control the way we see ourselves and in the way we as women value ourselves. How is it right that women are forced to live in a man’s world? Without us, there would be no world.
Women with children earn 10-15 percent less when compared to women without children; another study showed mothers were also 79 percent less likely to be hired for a job. If we add men as a variable, we see that having kids and “putting a ring on it” does nothing for us, instead it benefits our male counterparts. Men who are married and likely to have children earn more money than unmarried men. The U.S. is also the only industrialized nation to not provide paid parental leave. Men receive a larger paycheck after women give birth, whereas women lose money and quite possibly their career.
When did his education become more important than mine? When did I lose ownership of my own body? Why does his voice get to silence mine? Why is my bright future always “behind” me?
I am not a “piece of ass.” I am not just “pussy” and the size of my “tits” is not to be compared to my promiscuity. I am not “your doll.” I am not weak and I sure as hell am not your property to play with. I am not here to serve your needs. I am not to be disrespected, and I am not to swallow it or brush it off. I am not passive or submissive. I am not a “damsel in distress.” Instead, I am worthy of everything this world has to offer me and no one has the authority to take it away from me.
I should be able to say no without having to explain myself. I should be able to not say sorry without being labeled a bitch. I should be able to stand in an elevator surrounded by men without feeling like I’m a piece of meat. I should be able to bite my lip without being seen as seductive. I should be able to wear tight jeans and a crop top because I have a fit physique, not because “I’m asking for it.” I should be able to decide whether I choose his last name or not and not seem ignorant or arrogant if I choose not to. I should be able to decide whether I want to become pregnant or choose otherwise. And if I should choose not to have children, that does not make me any less of a woman. Most of all, I should be able to stand alone without needing a protector. I should be able to choose if I want a man in my life. I should not need one to be able to survive this world.
I do not want to seem ignorant to the progress that has been made in regard to women’s rights and opportunities in the last 200 years. If we look at how industrialized and advanced our world has become in the past 20 years, however, we find that our perspective on gender equality has definitely not progressed at an equivalent pace.
Natalie is a senior majoring in psychology and Spanish, with a certificate in gender and women’s studies. Please send all comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com
