I was born in the mid 70s. I was raised in the 80s, right in the heart of Feminism. When women were all about pant suits and shoulder pads. Every girl knew the words to “Working 9-5”. We were taught from a young age that we could do anything that a boy could do and not to take any flack just because we were girls.
Today women make up 60% of college students. Women make more money than men on average in their 20s. Approximately 25% of Congress, 18% of Governors, and 25% of Mayors are Women, and of course we have our first female Vice President. There are lists of the Top Ten Female CEOs in the World, not to mention all the everyday female owned and operated female companies. Women are doing what women have been fighting for over a century to do. They are ruling… and yet it’s not enough.
Women have women only gyms, and women only clubs, but if a men decide they want to have a men’s only area it’s sexism. Women can sleep around, and play games and they are Queens. If men do it, they’re users. Women have multiple baby daddies and live off the system so they don’t have to work, and it’s all good. Women can sleep around, get pregnant, and decide it’s fine to just kill the baby and people cheer for her. If men say they don’t feel ready to have a kid, they are dead beats.
Women in America today have no idea what oppression is. They think it’s someone calling them “Sweetie”. They think it’s a guy looking when they wear a low-cut shirt. You wore the shirt, expect the looks. No, you should never be touched without permission, but looks… when you’re flaunting it. Get over it. Women in America today should read about women in other countries. If you want to be a REAL Women’s Activist stop complaining that men want to have “safe spaces” where they can talk to each other too, and start looking into child brides, and women being killed for the crime of being raped.
This new feminist wave loves to feel better than because they point out that staying home and having babies (a thing most women actually WANT to do) is a sign of the Patriarchy. No, it’s a sign of existence. Having babies is literally the only way existence continues, and here’s the thing. Once most women have babies, a lot of them would much rather stay home with them than go back to work. That’s the reason why the pay gap changes between men and women in their 30s. Women have babies. They take time off to have them. They take time off to raise them. They switch careers to have a more flexible schedule to stay with them. They do all of this, because they want to. Because they choose to. Because they love their babies. They don’t love the boardroom.
This is a fundamental difference between men and women. Sure, SOME women would choose a career over babies, just as SOME men would choose staying home with the babies over a career, but it’s not the norm. And yes, there is a norm. There are choices and ways of thinking that are more female and more male. It’s the reason that gender roles were created in the first place. Yes, they were a social design. Generation after generation men wanted to go out and fight, and work, and provide for their families, and women wanted to stay home and take care of their babies. This is why in a majority of cultures this is the norm. This wasn’t put upon people by White Anglo-Saxon Men. This same phenomenon happened in Asian countries, and African countries, and Middle Eastern countries, and the tribes that came over from Asian countries to eventually be called Native Americans. The same “Societal Creations” happened regardless of which society, because it’s also biological.
So, today, when you are looking for a feminist fight, don’t look at the guy sitting next to you in the cubical who held the door for you. Look to the countries and cultures that are still raping and selling women if you want to fight for your fellow woman. Unless you just want the big strong men to keep going to war for you.
Katrina Michelle Russell 