Relationships August 12, 2016
Have you ever found yourself in a rally or a march, surrounded by people with the same mindset as you that are all fighting for a certain cause? It’s powerful to be in such a situation – one where people gather together in substantial numbers to create a vocal movement, perhaps to even make history. Why don’t women do the same thing?
Though women have come a long way from where they were centuries ago, there is still much work to be done. There are still women’s issues and concerns that continue to be ignored, such as the wage gap, the second shift and paid maternity leave.
Why is that? If women make up more than half of the U.S. population, why don’t women join arms together and insist that they must be equal to their male counterparts? For those of you seeking to find an answer to that question, here are four ways women could help change our culture if they all came into their own en masse.
Women are more attuned to discrimination. They know what it’s like to be belittled for their work, to be flirted with while waiting for a bus and to receive a smaller paycheck for identical work. Women are aware of both the outright and more nuanced forms of discrimination that plague society because they have to endure them. Using women to highlight these problems is only the first step in remedying them.
Want to know how to resolve an issue? Ask the people the problem affects. Gaining a woman’s perspective on issues like cat-calling, degradation and discrimination is the most productive way to tackle the problem. It makes sense to involve women in the process of correcting the problems they face since they experience it first-hand.
Women were forced to watch men run the show for hundreds of years as they created laws and policies, attained jobs and wealth for the family and asserted their dominance over properties and households. It wasn’t until women decided to speak out that they achieved the right to vote, the ability to work outside the home and the right to an education. Change occurred when women banded together in movements, campaigning for their rights and privileges.
Men have been placed in positions of power for centuries. Although more women are beginning to enter male-dominated businesses, there is still work to do. Women should work together to increase their representation. One woman on a corporate board isn’t enough; they shouldn’t stop there. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, renowned for her adherence to women’s equality in her Supreme Court rulings, was posed a question that asked her when she thought there would be enough women on the Supreme Court. She responded, “And my answer is when there are nine. And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there’s been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”
