In the simplest of terms, feminism is advocating for women to have equal rights to men. Feminism has many more facets to it, ones that cover all aspects of life. Read on for a crash course in a few of the major feminist issues.
1. The Media and Women
Take a look at a tabloid magazine the next time you’re in the grocery store. Strong chances are that you will see a headline criticizing a woman for something. It could be her appearance or her personal life or what she wore last week. But it is probably is not her accomplishments or her personality. Sexist stereotypes persist everywhere from major Hollywood films to 30-second ads, from news broadcasts to video games.
Find out more: http://time.com/3908138/women-in-media-sad-truths-report/; http://www.womensmediacenter.com/pages/2014-statistics
2. Race and Feminism
Everyone always talks about the wage gap: women make 79 cents to a man’s dollar. But the even uglier truth is that African American women make 63 cents to a white man’s dollar and Hispanic women only make 54 cents. For every problem of sexism white women face, women of color usually have it worse. Women of color are underrepresented in so many areas and their voices are often ignored. Viola Davis just won an Emmy and in her speech she said, “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there” in reference to why black women don’t get more roles.
Find out more: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/15/feminism_cant_be_just_for_white_women/; http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
3. Women’s Bodies
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months, you will have heard about all the efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Regardless of where you stand on abortion, only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortion procedures. They provide STI testing, cancer screenings and contraception as well as other services. The attack on places like Planned Parenthood is an attack against women and their ability to keep themselves healthy.
Find out more:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/what-defunding-planned-parenthood-would-really-mean/?ref=topics&_r=0; http://mic.com/articles/125844/bill-nye-perfectly-uses-science-to-defend-women-s-reproductive-rights
4. Violence Against Women
There’s been a lot in the news lately about rape on college campuses. And sadly, 1 in 4 college women will be the victim of sexual assault while at university. In the United States, 17.7 million women have been sexually assaulted. Rape culture is persistent in our society and this issue is one that far too many women deal with.
5. Work and Family
As of 2014, there are exactly two countries in the entire world without any type of paid parental leave: Papua New Guinea and the United States of America. In an economy where both parents usually need to work, we have made it extremely hard to do so. Eight in ten women do more housework than their male partners, so even though women are now able to be in the work force, gender divisions are still present. And the glass ceiling still exists. Far less women have high ranking positions than men and only twenty percent of Congress is female.
Find out more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mehroz-baig/women-in-the-workforce-wh_b_4462455.html; http://fortune.com/2015/10/06/childcare-rent-women-workforce/
So What Can You Do? There are many more facets of feminism to explore that this article did not touch on, so the best thing you can do is educate yourself. Read and watch and learn as many different opinions as you can to find your stance on these issues and the way you fit into the feminism movement.