Listen HereBy: Juliyana Straley
Twitter: @jstraley7
Email: straleyj@findlay.edu
The past few months, social media has been littered with Feminist movements and protests. Women are coming together to fight for equality between men and women. With each hashtag, more people support the cause.
I have seen people consistently bashing men for their “hostility” towards women. Men are constantly blamed for this problem of inequality; they are considered the enemy to women. We are convinced that the white man must be taken down in order for us to succeed, and I believe we are mistaken.
The wage gap is a problem. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, women are earning 80 cents for every man’s dollar; this is not acceptable. However, this statistic does not separate between jobs. A teacher is not going to have the same salary as a CEO, but both of these jobs are embedded in the statistic.
There is a reality that several feminists seem to overlook: men have been in the workforce far longer than women. Women didn’t really begin to enter the force until after the Civil War, and it wasn’t until World War II that many more women entered the labor force taking over jobs of men going into war.
Women stayed at home taking care of the children and duties of the house, there is no crime in saying that. Being a “stay-at-home-mom” is not a dirty phrase that we have to say in hushed tones. What an amazing, difficult job it is to take care of a family (so difficult many men could not do it). Women are still making their way up the workforce. We have several years to catch up on the men that came before us.
It is a fact that men are more likely than women to obtain higher job levels, which careerbuilder.com validates. Men are more likely to be company owners, senior management, vice presidents, or directors than women are and that is not a crime.
Men and women are wired different which makes a majority of women more likely to want to be teachers, have technical roles, or have administrative jobs. Women are CEO’s and company owners because some women love that line of work, but others simply do not. I have no desire to be a CEO of a company, but I sure would like the pay raise.
The whole idea of equality is wonderful in theory, but the wage gap is not the only place of inequality. If need be, men are drafted into war if our country is in trouble; however, women are not. Equality means that both men and women should be drafted into the army and how many women would be willing to do that? In this situation, men are facing the downside of inequality by being forced to fight, but how many feminists will fight for the right to be drafted?
Perhaps equality is not the answer. Perhaps we have to understand the differences in each other. Perhaps there is no enemy here but ourselves.
