The need for feminism

Feminists and all others who strive for gender equity are not bashing the “man-o-saurus.” Recognition of privilege — and being a man is a privilege — is not attacking every individual man. Identifying a wage gap between the genders is also not attacking individual men or drumming up “faulty numbers and statistics” to make these arguments.

This evidence is easily accessible through entities like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has been around for over a century. Women rarely earn more in any given occupation. Go look it up.

Women are seeking education at an ever-increasing rate. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women have earned the majority of associates, bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in 2010. It seems that women are not stopping at education levels that would support the wage gap.

Not all women choose “feminized” occupations, and even if they did, there should not be this disparity. Women are increasingly becoming breadwinners as more “masculine” jobs are being downsized in this country. Stay-at-home dads are becoming much more prevalent. Yet, the wage gap persists.

The amount of hours per week that women work on average compared to men is also not significant enough to explain this 77 percent earnings rate. Comparing individual incomes does not promote the idea of equality overall. These studies and statistics are generated to explore this phenomenon in a broader context. Saying that one man and one woman earn comparable wages is an anecdotal fallacy.

Are equal rights still considered special treatment? This logical fallacy in place of an argument is often employed to disparage efforts for equality.

Opinions are fine. They are the basis of many — sometimes productive — conversations. However, your opinion must be informed. Making broad generalizations and false claims gets us nowhere. Do men and women earn the same wages? No.

Are women already equal to men? No. They are not. And this is a problem.

 

–Jordan Clapper,

MFA and MA student

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