Feminism....is it for equality

Feminism...is it for equality? sondry.com /posts/Feminismis-it-for-equality-rShUr-12-02-2015

Rights thoughts equality thought by crystalrevamped 4 min read PERSPECTIVE

Photo by morning-theft / CC BY / TiltShift filter has been applied

Feminism. What does it mean...really. Well by definition it's, "The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." Being a woman, of course I would agree with this statement. There are so many women in parts of the world who have no voice and need people to fight for them. We need to help these women get a voice! So I was left wondering, why is there such a bad rap that is attached to being a feminist?

Well, I know that this is a controversial topic, but it needs to be explored. I actually never gave feminism a thought. Never felt like I had less opportunities due to being a women. In fact not even anyone I knew has ever mentioned it. So why am I thinking about this now? I recently attended a conference where there were many great and inspirational speakers but one of them stood out. She came out loud and proud.

Being a woman, I am always happy to hear about what people are doing to help empower women, but this time, not so much. I soon began to realize why being a feminist got a bad rep.

First off, if you are going to throw out statistics, at least know the ones of the country you are in. When speaking at, (and yes she was speaking AT us) with so much conviction, please don't say, "Well I don't know what you're stats are in Canada but in the U.S it is.......". This was thrown out at least three times.

Then she followed with more stats stating that only 10% of entrepreneurs are women. Consider this, only about 50 years ago were women of ALL races were allowed to vote in Canada. So considering that in 50 years we went from not even having a voice to being 10% of entrepreneurs is not bad progress. Only in the last 20 years or so did we see a shift in the work force where at one time, there could be four generations of people working together ranging from baby boomers to millennials, maybe even Gen Z! She then disclosed she recently had a baby, and being pregnant in itself should have it's own issues that need to be brought to attention. Wait a minute....what? Women have been blessed with the ability to give birth and bear children since the beginning of time. It is our ability to do this and not needing a trophy about it that makes us strong! Yes, I understand not everyone has the same pregnancy but to make a statement so strong and then not elaborate in it as if to say we need special treatment for being a women...didn't sit right with me. Seeing that the point is equality, the fact that we need to point out our differences really defeats the purpose. Then she ended with her goal of having 50% men and 50% women working equally side by side in the work force. Why is this important? Does this mean being a stay at home mom frowned upon? Why do we need to fill a statistic and have to be out in the work force just because we can? It's like a teenager who is finally of age to drink to start going out and drinking all the time. Sure, its not the same, but the thought is not far off. This mentality is what the cause of a lot of women these days in the work force wanting more balance as they never get to see their own children. Also, there are now a lot of women who do stay at home with their family because we have so many other opportunities to be online entrepreneurs through etsy, blogging, online marketing, MLM and the list goes on. Does this count for the entrepreneurs stats? I could be wrong but I do not think so.

All I know is that I would never want to be hired to fill a statistic, pay extra taxes because we need to hire extra men to work alongside women as fire fighters and police officers because they need their strength to deal with tough situations or needing accommodations for being pregnant. I am 100% for equal opportunities and because of this, we need to have people, men and women, getting hired because they are the best candidate. The more we talk about feminism, the more we separate our selves and become less of an equal. Men and women are meant to be different with different strengths. Why anyone would want our beautiful and unique difference to bend together so we all do the same thing is beyond me.

But hey, what does my opinion matter. I am just a person who has been able to juggle being a single parent for a few years, collecting no child support while working a full time job and have been able to buy a home and care for me and my family. I'm an advocate of people to have equal opportunity and choice to live their life as strong men and women doing what is best for them based on their strengths.Gender?

Never even thought about it being a factor and I am not going to start now. In a place where we are fortunate enough to have equal opportunities and rights, we as people need to be grateful for what we can

get and do and stop finding problems where there are none. Women, let's keep learning and going for what we want because we haven;t stopped since we were able to vote. We are smart, capable and creative. We will be what we want to be, as strong women that don't need to point it out or need recognition for being just that.

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