By Jan Brito ’23
Imagine a world where, between two people, there was better treatment for one of them because of their gender. Sound familiar? That’s because in the world we currently live in, women aren’t treated equally to men. Many people, including men, believe women should have equal rights; this belief is called feminism.
Why do I care? While many men think women shouldn’t be treated as equals, I personally believe in equality for all because of my mother being my biggest inspiration. As a man, I could find it easy to be treated better than women. However, I was raised by a single, hard-working mother, and I see the discrimination against my mother through her eyes. As a child, I never thought about women not being treated equally to men, but as I grew older I saw the challenges my mother faced at the workplace because she was a woman. My mother started working at a hair salon at the age of twenty and was underpaid by her boss. He asked her to dinner many times and while my mother politely declined every invitation, this didn’t stop her sixty-year-old boss from insisting. This was an inappropriate action that the men in the salon did not experience. Many women experience harassment and discrimination like this daily.
The word “feminism” is a very controversial word to this day because many people, including women, believe the negative (and incorrect) stereotypes that make people not support the cause. Some of these inaccurate stereotypes are the ideas that feminists are playing the victim, that feminism says women are weak, feminists hate men, and being a feminist means rejecting traditional gender roles.
None of this is to say that people who don’t support the equal rights movement are bad people. Some people genuinely believe men and women already are treated equally.
However, there are still many things to be done for women to be equal to men; one of these big changes that needs to be made is “the pink tax.” The pink tax refers to the fact that products geared at women such as shampoo, razors, toys, and other accessories cost more. These items are priced 7 percent higher than items geared towards men. To make matters worse, according to The National Partnership for Women and Families, women in the U.S working part-time and full- time make 77 percent of what their male counterparts earn. This pay gap is even worse for women of color.
Money isn’t the only problem women face. Harassment in the workplace is a constant issue women face and men receive very little consequences for these actions. Women are often spoken down to and given inappropriate comments on their body. This makes women feel uncomfortable and feel forced to resign, which has many serious effects on their lives.
I asked two young women at Derby High School what they think about feminism and if they themselves are feminists. To Savannah Harrold ‘25, feminism means “all genders having equal rights and opportunities.” She says she is definitely a feminist because she believes in, “respecting women’s experiences, strengths, and empowering all women.” Brianna Kling ‘25 similarly said, “Feminism is simply trying to advocate for gender equality.” She then talked about negative stereotypes about feminism, adding, “I think that sometimes feminism gets a bad rep because people misinterpret it as anti-men.” Kling definitely is not against reducing men’s rights, nor wants women to be treated better than men, as she says, “Feminism is just about equality between men and women…getting rid of gender stereotypes.”
So while many improvements in women’s rights have been made, there are still ways that women are treated unequally to men. The movement for this to be changed is called “Feminism’, which is why being a feminist is not a bad thing. Being a feminist isn’t putting men beneath women but rather treating everyone with equality and respect no matter their gender.
The Raider Press 