Feminism is not the belief that one gender has to be in control of another. Feminist means “person who believes people should have equitable places in society regardless of their gender.” This definition of feminism shows the complete oposition for this belief. There is no in between. You are either a feminist or sexist. Unfortunately, most sexists don’t know they are sexist, and compose the majority of the population. They are unaware that sexism is something that has been forced on to them through the brainwashed media of a patriarchal society. Feminism claims to stand for two things above all: women’s equality and enabling women to be strong.
Regarding the first aim, no decent man or woman opposes the concept of the equality of the sexes. But people who do not call themselves feminists have a problem with the feminist notion of equality: Most feminists have conflated equality and sameness. And that’s a huge mistake; the sexes are equal, but they are different.
A second major problem regarding the feminist claim to aspire to women’s equality is that feminists frequently provide false evidence to prove that women are not treated as equals. The best known example is the false statistic that American women earn about 25 percent less than men when they do the same work for the same amount of time.
What is Gender Inequality?
In order to understand modern feminism, it is important to first understand what it is that feminists are fighting against – gender inequality. So, what exactly is gender inequality? In an ideal world, men and women would both be represented equally in all areas and given all of the same rights and opportunities. However, while gender inequality exists this is not the case. It is more apparent in some parts of the world than it is in others, but even in progressive countries like Britain, Australia and the United States there is evidence of women getting short changed! One of the most common examples which has been in the media of late is the ‘wage gap’. Several actresses including Jennifer Lawrence and Gillian Anderson have recently spoken out about being paid less for movies that they have starred in than their male co-stars – even in cases where they are the bigger box office draw. They seem to be discriminated against for no other reason than the fact that they are female. While Hollywood stars may not be short of a few bucks, it is still unacceptable for them to paid less than a male actor doing the same job. It is also something that is happening not just in Hollywood, but in all manner of workplaces.
Other examples of gender inequality include women being told that they are to blame for sexual assault for dressing provocatively or girls being pushed into studying certain domestic subjects at school such as hospitality and secretarial studies rather than being encouraged to pursue interests in more male dominated subjects such as engineering. Then of course, if you look further afield to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia where women have fewer rights than men cases of gender inequality are far more extreme with women being forbidden from being in public without a chaperone and unable to go shopping or even drive.