Strong and Independent is the New Face of Femininity
Why celebrate women for a day or even a month? Because women rock. Women are no longer demure damsels in distress. Frail and weak are no longer fashionable. In the Victorian Era, less than two hundred years ago, a fad of fainting demonstrated femininity and was deemed an appropriate behavioral response by the ever so fragile woman. But today, strong and independent is the new face of femininity.
Throughout history, and around the globe, women have taken great strides to find level ground for gender equality. It was less than 60 years ago when Congress passed the Equal Pay Act (EPA) in the United States, yet the next generation of women are still fighting to stop sex-based wage discrimination. While the standard figure used to describe the gender wage ratio is 80 cents on the dollar earned by women compared to men, researchers at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research has found it to be a gross underestimate. In 2018, economist Heidi I. Hartman and Stephen J. Rose reported that women earn as low as 49 cents to the dollar of their male counterparts. When women measured by total earnings across the 15 years, faced a wage gap of 51 percent between 2001 and 2015.
The first major Supreme Court case that challenged the EPA was in the early 1970s, in the famous case Reed vs. Reed. The Equal Protection case highlighted the discrimination in estate administration and catalyzed the Women’s Right Project by Ruther Bader Ginsberg.
While women in America still experience challenges of economic inequality in patriarchal systems, American women are among the most opportunity-rich women in the World. For the first time in U.S history, more women are serving Congress in record numbers and are running for president. Women in U.S politics are gaining power and raising their voices despite being subjected to sexist slander for having views on issues of inequality.
From a global perspective the biggest challenge facing women is educational inequality; something as an American woman in academics, I have taken for granted. Millions of girls around the world are denied an equal opportunity for education. Millions of girls and young women, in disparaged populations and war zones, are hindered from going to school by child marriage and cultural discrimination. Educating women is essential for the evolution of the human race. It prevents early childhood death, reduces childhood pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted disease, and it leads to fewer girls in child marriages. Educated women are more likely to contribute to their communities and take on leadership roles.
Celebrating women around the world brings awareness of gender inequality. Moreover, it highlights women who have a voice and women that are still being culturally silenced.
Hansen. (2019). 13 Moments That Changed Women’s History Forever. Readers Digest. https://www.rd.com/culture/moments-that-changed-womens-history/.
Rose and Hartmann. (2018). The Slowly Narrowing Gender Wage Gap. Still a Man’s Labor Market. Institute for Women’s Research Policy. https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/C474_IWPR-Still-a-Mans-Labor-Market-update-2018-2.pdf
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. Realisation of the Equal Enjoyment of the Right to Education by Every Girl. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/ReportGirlsEqualRightEducation.pdf
van Dijk, N., & Wieling, W. (2009). Fainting, emancipation and the ‘weak and sensitive’ sex. The Journal of physiology, 587(Pt 13), 3063-4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2727011/
AAWCC Southwestern Oregon Community College Chapter 