Unless you live under a rock – you know that the struggle for woman’s fair pay, equal opportunities, and equitable health outcomes is far from achieved in American society. As an ardent feminist, I believe strongly in these issues. Fortunately for my own personal cause, the feminism debate has been revived on a national scale thanks in large part to Sandra Fluke and her crusade in the War on Women, a TED Talk on work-life balance by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, a rebuttal in an article titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” by Anne Marie Slaughter, and then a subsequent book published by Sheryl Sandberg due out March 11th titled Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead. I'd even argue Beyonce’s stellar performance at the Super Bowl Half-Time injected energy into the feminism debate.
Conversations like this all over the news right now, trending on Twitter like mad and blowing up my news feed on Facebook. As I take part in the national conversation about feminism, there is still a lot to do in the fight for true equality between the genders. Especially as a senior about to graduate and enter into a less-than-stellar job market, I am trying to come to terms with my position as a feminist in the world. I know that women negotiate their salaries less often than men, and that women are still paid 81 cents for every dollar a man earns. I know these statistics and they suck, so what is my personal role in changing them?
There have been some remarkable things gone right in the feminist movement that has been spearheaded by amazing women throughout history (don’t believe me, watch the PBS documentary Makers). But in addition to what’s right in the world, I am still upset. Here’s why:
- I believe the feminist movement has stalled. Everyday in this nation, we are still having conversations that blow my mind. And those jokes about women going into the kitchen to make sandwiches are not funny. They never have been. A truly equal world would be one where women ran half of our countries and companies and men ran half of our domestic spheres. The laws of economics and many studies tell us that if all human resources and talent were combined and the responsibilities shared equally, our performance would improve.
- I hate that “feminist” is still a scary word. For many people (men and women), it is still considered “yucky” to call yourself a feminist. Most people associate the word with a bra-burning, hippie-dippy, free-spirited woman screaming about vaginas. But that’s simply not the case. Being a feminist means that there should be no differences between genders – women, men, transgender, queer, you name it. We’re all the same and we all deserve equal treatment under law. That’s fair. The fact that the CEO of Yahoo! Marissa Mayer does not consider herself a feminist is sad. Really? Come on! Hanna Rosin quotes Mayer in a Slate article, “'I don’t think that I would consider myself a feminist,' echoing other great thinkers such as Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. She believes in equal rights, of course, and thinks women might be even more capable than men at many things. Her objection seems to be mostly about style, which she summarizes as 'militant drive and sort of the chip on the shoulder.' When thinking about women, 'there’s more good that comes out of positive energy around that than negative energy.'"
- Women need people to tell them they can. Our nation seems to attribute the fact that women only occupy 18% of congressional offices as a structural problem. That may be true. Another problem is the fact that women are not being told as often as men that they should run for office. Women and men win elected seats as often, but women run less than men. Women need to be told an average of 7 times from a mentor or peer that they should run for office before they actually starting thinking seriously about doing it. Men need to be told but twice. Is this an ambition gap between the sexes? Maybe. Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook would say yes. Journalist Katy Waldman of Slate writes, “The fact is, if women hope to hold more than 15 percent of the country’s CEO positions, they do need to fight. Sandberg calls on women (and men, for that matter) to reform the system, not defer to it. No one would deny the complexity of the dynamic that keeps women from achieving equality in the boardroom. But is it really so hard to concede that we have a role to play in our own advancement, and that part of that role consists of challenging the voices from our upbringings that insist on demure behavior?”
- Even feminists harp on other feminists and that’s not cool. Madeleine Albright once said, “There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.” Usually, I pull this quote out when I watch the news and I see Republican women like Michelle Bachmann doing something ridiculous like not voting for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But, recently there have been a fair share of go-get-em feminists harping on Sheryl Sandberg for writing a book about leaning into careers. Especially when women write something like this, it’s just sad. Sabrina Schaeffer, a contributor at Forbes, writes, “Let’s face it: feminists today are pretending to fight wars that were won long ago. Clearly the world isn’t perfect; but women in America are equal under the law; they have access to all the educational and professional opportunities men do; and, as AEI’s Christina Hoff Sommers has argued, if anyone is hurting these days it’s boys and men.” It is my humble opinion that f you are a woman, you should support women everywhere. It's a sisterhood thing.
- Who run the world? Unfortunately, Beyonce, the answer is still men. Here’s a quote from a recent TIME article on Sheryl Sandberg. "Women’s journey to the top is having an altitude problem. Young female executives begin on the same career staircase as men, but it’s almost as if the stairs change direction, Hogwarts-like, and take them somewhere else. For three decades, more women than men have graduated from college, but that academic dominance has not led to corresponding business or political success. There are currently only 17 heads of state out of 195 who do not have a Y chromosome. Women hold about 20% of all seats in parliaments globally. Slightly more than 4% of Fortune 500 companies are headed by women, and women hold 17% of board seats. Worse, these numbers aren’t changing very fast. Ten years ago, 14% of board seats were held by women. A decade has passed, and women have gotten a few inches farther into the boardroom. 'Women are not making it to the top of any profession in the world,'says Sandberg. 'But when I say the blunt truth is that men run the world, people say, ‘Really?’ That, to me, is the problem.'”
- We can only do so much individually until policy discussions need to help women. As Dominique Browning of TIME Magazine writes, “Don’t Waste Time Pushing the String. Life is often a string, when it is not a bowl of spaghetti. Pushing on one end of a piece of string does not produce forward movement on the other end. Jobs often become stringy; there are times when no matter how how much willpower or brute force you put into that stringy situation, you simply aren’t going to get ahead. Women are often loyal to a fault; we can be reluctant to acknowledge that things aren’t going to get better. So don’t waste time pushing the string. Move on. You want to be in front. Pulling. That’s why leaning in is so important. Engage. And stay engaged. Make choices, make mistakes, make moves. Practice resilience. Love. Work. Play. Enjoy, and weep bitter tears. That’s life. We’ve never had it so good. And it is only getting better.” So once we get to this point, we need policy makers to take over. Start having real dialogue and decisions being made about families policies, women's reproductive rights, gender gaps, and many other problems that are not being addressed at a policy level.
As a nation, it would be beneficial to address the above points. Until jokes about women are no longer funny, women leaning into their careers is a positive, and women occupy half of our boardrooms, our society will not be completely equal.