“Shut up,” “you already have your rights,” “stop making yourself a victim.” This all common rhetoric in response to women’s rights organizations.
Is this really a viable response though? I have a hard time fathoming that over a million women in the U.S. alone would have taken the time and energy out of their day just to victimize themselves over the rights they already possess.
So maybe the issue doesn’t lie in current legislation, but instead in that just because something is written in law, doesn’t mean it has re-written the attitudes of our population.
Underage drinking, using illicit substances, driving in the left lane or filling our water cup with soda, are examples of this.
How about we get a little more serious. Rights were granted to African Americans in the late 1800’s, yet prejudice and discrimination was still rampant in the 1950’s, nearly a hundred years after those rights were instated. Even in 2017 racism is still prevalent.
I think that historically, it’s quite clear that humanity can take lifetimes to adapt to new norms, so it seems only habitual that sexism still surfaces.
Women have been working incredibly hard throughout history and with their fortitude, a lot has been accomplished. That is not to be forgotten, but in order to carry out equality, we can’t turn a blind eye at lingering sexism.
When women were given the right to vote, it didn’t eliminate sexism. The only instantaneous difference was that now women could legally vote. Of course, this was very significant in the long-term perspective because it weaned the door open a little wider for women to start deviating from the norms and “sticking it to the man.”
Overtime housewives began talking back, wearing pants, graduating from college and earning their own salary. Some of these have taken generations to normalize.
It’s obvious that at least in Western culture, gender roles are smudging together and losing importance, but I don’t believe we have reached the pinnacle of equal opportunity just because someone tells me that we have.
The top 10 richest people in the U.S. are all men. Only 4.4% of S&P 500 company CEOs are women. The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are predominantly male by about 80%. The U.S. has never had a female president. I would think that if sexism has been dead for so long, these powerful positions would have evened out a bit more.
Women can enter the workforce and do their best to climb the ladder, but just because they can, doesn’t mean they always may. The pesky glass ceiling seems to hang just little lower than others.
Sexual violence overwhelmingly targets women. There is now a whole market to capitalize off of it. Technology is being used to develop products, like nail polish that detects when a drink has been drugged or underwear that can’t be pulled off or torn.
Women are often expressed as nurturing and submissive individuals and seldom portrayed as powerful or dominant.
I certainly don’t believe that we are innately sexist as a culture, but I do think that we are stringing along sexist biases, that may appear benevolent or insignificant, but only function to hold the gap open.
I struggle to empathize with the belief that when women speak up about our rights, we are playing the victim. By speaking up, I believe that we are simply just trying to not become a victim.
Hannah Hamlin
Reporter