Gender equality is still a concernining issue.

This is my speech from 2014, I converted it into a written piece and want to showcase it as my arguments for gender equality not being 100% yet. I'm also Australian.

Since the Foundations of this great country were laid in 1788, Women have continued time and time again to be unfairly treated. What I’m here to write about is a plaguing issue in our society, Sexism. I believe that we need to fix the many issues in our society such as, the unfair disadvantages for women in employment and in the media. You may not be expecting this topic from a male, but I’ve chosen this topic, so you can see how important this issue is in our culture.

From a statistical perspective we can see that this issue is a frequent issue in the workplace. This can be seen in the pay figures for men and women. For example, the Australian bureau of statistics reports that on average men earn 18% more then women across all fields of work. This statistic directly shows the pay gap between Australian men and women. Also the facts aren’t exactly improving, as our gender pay gap is the highest it’s been since 1994.
On top of that each year as a result of their pregnancy 30,000 UK women are sacked and a further 220,000 are refused pay/promotion. It’s painstakingly clear in the statistics alone, women in the workplace receive many unfair disadvantages. If we are to truly unleash our national economic might, we have to utilise 100 percent of the population.

We can see this problem not only in the workplace, but also in the newspapers we read, the television shows we watch and the radio broadcasts we listen to. For decades our senses have been bombarded with anti-women messages in the media. For much of 2013, our former Prime Minister Julia Gillard was interrogated about her sexuality, her husband and other personal details by the media. Now we have to ask ourselves: would this have ever happened had a male had been sitting in that chair? This misogyny culture we have created for ourselves is teaching the children that it’s okay to objectify women.

In conclusion, we as a society need to fix these plaguing issues, which are holding back our advancements from not only an economic standpoint, but from a humanitarian one. We cannot allow sexism in the workplace and sexism in the media to further objectify women anymore. If we are to correct the sexist foundations that were laid down in 1788 then we need to stamp out all the misogyny in the workplace and in the media. After all if it weren’t for the all the great women in our lives, none of us would be sitting in here reading this.

 

You speak as if sexism only happens to women...
Most of the statistics that tell you the difference between a mans pay and a woman's pay are ridiculous. Here in the UK a woman is paid exactly the same as a man if it's the same job. The difference in pay comes from men taking different career paths than women.

I'm a civil engineer myself and while I was at college there was 1 girl on the course. While in uni, there was none.
However I met a lot of women doing nursing and such and the 2 jobs have significantly different pay.

IMO the only sexism that exists now a days is by uneducated buffoon.

 

The patriarchy is real man, but it's not really fair to compare the salaries of ALL men to ALL women (lots of women choose to be stay-at-home moms). If you compare the salaries of men and women who are in the same field, have the same level of experience, qualifications, etc., the disparity drops to ~7%. Some studies even show that that 7% can be explained by willingness to negotiate.

 

These points are b.s.

1) Gender pay gap has been thoroughly debunked. The way its calculated is poor, and many factors aren't taken into consideration. (Men are more likely to take more dangerous jobs, work longer hours, negotiate a better salary, etc).

2) Have you seen how men are portrayed in the media? They're made out to be total buffoons. That's just one example, this isn't a gender specific issue.

 

Gender pay gap is a myth, if a man / woman are doing the same job, there's no gap.. That's illegal. Where'as a man / woman doing the same job and the man is full-time and the woman is part-time, of course their pay checks are going to be different. But the amount they're paid for the time they're there is the same.

I often laugh when I get into conversation with this, "We want equal opportunity" however, it's still the men working in the mines, garbage collection, sewer maintenance.. It's more a we want equal opportunity with the good jobs.

 

slightly off topic from the original post, but the gender wage gap certainly exists. this is a relatively simple summary from the WSJ that has pretty graphs for those not looking to get into it, but if you have any interest in reading further economics perspectives about the issue, they are definitely out there.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/04/14/the-gender-wage-gap-in-eight-charts/

 

Its like when men are called players and women are called sluts.

In Saudi Arabia, as of only 2015, women are able to vote and run for office: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/in-saudi-arabia-women-can-now-cast-a-vote-and-run-for-office/

Women are still forbidden to drive in Saudi Arabia: http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/25/forbidden-to-drive-a-saudi-woman-on-life-inside-the-kingdom/

Freedom of marriage - many women still suffer from being forced in marriages they do not want

In Lebanon, men have so many ways to divorce their wife but the wife do not. For instance, if they are abused, they cannot divorce unless there's a witness: https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/19/interview-women-unequal-under-lebanons-law

In India, you cannot file for spousal rape: http://www.borgenmagazine.com/court-rules-rape-laws-india/

As mentioned from above, wage gap differences between genders.

Access to education: In Afghanistan, there's a lot of illiterate women because of groups opposing women's education: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/7/afghani-women-strive-to-get-an-education

 

It "exists", but not in the way people who use the term mean (particularly to try to claim that there is 'sexism' in the workplace). Pay disparities are accounted for by worker productivity, vacations, overtime, etc, that differ noticeably between sexes.

Also, the science of economics is blind to sexes - money prevails. If there was some 20%+ wage premium to hire a male worker, employers would never hire them unless female workers didn't apply, or didn't qualify for the job.

 

People conflate the existence of a wage gap (Yes it does exist), with that gap being the result of sexism (It is not, or at least not to the tune of 20~%).

A wage gap can exist, and it can exist for reasons independent of sexism. So when you say that a "wage gap" exists, I don't think anyone actually disgarees with you (in terms of aggregate income/gender. Where the discourse lies is what the cause of that gap is, and as people factor certain variables in, that gap diminishes substantially. Additionally, per economic law, the existence of sexism being the cause of the gap is contrary to logic in a competitive market.

 

Another feminist with their head stuffed in a hole in the ground. The only reason women don't always enjoy the same luxuries as men is because they don't work for it. Women have life on easy mode and most of them prefer to while and pissmoan about things they dont have because they are spoiled and used to having everything handed to them.

back to tumblr with you

 

Some pretty bold claims there - why do you think that women don't work as hard as men, and why do you think that they live "life on easy mode"?

Also - you seem to have a problem with feminists. What exactly do you think a feminist is?

 

Talk about equality, I think women in some if not most situations now are treated higher then men.. we never hit equal its always been tilted to one side

 

A huge problem is that people see all feminism as 3rd wave crazy nazi bullshit lead by a few figureheads with minions of young, impressionable teenage and college-aged girls.

The fact of the matter is that women used to be treated unequally (and still are in many places in the world). However, gender inequalities in most first world countries in the present age are nominal at best.

 

I'd appreciate if you could actually have some concrete evidence to back up your wildly speculative claims. I don't see the scenario you describe happening anywhere in the world. It always is a scale from a slight edge towards the favoring of men to a heavy one, in some Middle Eastern countries.

 

Im not talking about middle eastern countries or any 3rd world countries as they're so far behind with everything else. Those countries are stuck in the past unfortunately and maybe i'm just being ignorant but you'll never change them.

 

So which countries are you talking about where you have data that backs up your claim of women being treated better than men? The only situation I can think of in 1st world countries is rape claims, and that is far from "most" situations as you say.

 

Women don't suffer from forced military servitude like men. They also receive enormous bias in the court system, where they serve far less years than men who commit the same crime, and win custody, divorce battles at a decisive rate over men.

 

Gender inequalities in the first world are certainly not nominal:

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/we-need-feminism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_the_United_States
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2008/02/9175.html

Pay particular attention to denial of healthcare and violent sexual assault against women.

Yes, due to outdated notions of women being fragile mothers that can't fight, and must be taken care of. Aside from custody battles, consider the levels of violence against women, being denied healthcare, and not having complete bodily autonomy.

Feminism is the crazy idea that men and women are EQUAL. It's not a scam designed to put women on top, contrary to what you might believe.

 

I must note here that there is a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Although many people advocating for gender equality say they only want equality of opportunity, they actually want both, which is a contradiction.

For example, take the wage gap. Many feminists assuredly would rejoice if the wage-gap narrowed to 0. This focuses on equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity; I wonder why; when you are analyzing opportunity, you don't look at the outcome of a race, you look at whether everyone was treated 'equally' leading up to the race. If little Jimmy put less time into training, it should be obvious that Jack, who put more time in the race would probably win; interestingly, when you do factor in other variables, you find the wage-gap reduces significantly. Alas, the last time cookies were sold, this data was not reflected, but rather I had to pay $1 whereas women had to pay $.80. I appreciate the sentiment, but that does not reflect the reality of the situation at all. Take another, in higher education. Many feminists would rejoice at the notion of an increase in the quantity of university educated women; no concerns that there are more college educated women than men now however, where is the fight for equality here?

Although I don't want to paint with a broad-brush the multiple manifestations of what a feminists believes in. What MUST be noted is that too often women are fighting for equality of outcome in practice, yet saying they fight for equality of opportunity in words. When your actions contradict your words, caution ought be exercised. However exercising caution against feminism means you are labelled a sexist.

You also talk about outdated notions... The important thing to note is the feminists are silent on this. True, some will say that they stand for men's issues too. First this inherently accepts that men are being treated unequally in a negative light. But, what you will find is that those very same women OFTEN, judging them based on their actions, don't care so much about issues that affect men.

Finally, note how the topics here at least represent legitimate issues. The more recent manifestation of feminism however is to call everything rape, everything sexist, and everything discriminatory and offensive. Go figure why no one takes gender equality seriously anymore. It's more like gender equality in the place I am presently located; as opposed to gender equality in the world at large, specifically non-western countries.

 

When opportunities are equal, outcome will be (largely) equal also. Outcome would be nice, but it's not the goal.

The wage gap is over-hyped - most of the difference comes from women having less experience, being in less lucrative fields, etc., not from outright discrimination against women. This is why it's important to implement feminist teaching early, so as not to (explicitly or implicitly) drum "boys are engineers and girls are mothers" into children's heads.

The fight for equality with regards to college enrollments would be looking at the outcome, not the opportunity as you mentioned earlier. As long as everybody has an equal opportunity, I don't really care that slightly more women go on to enroll in college. (Consider also that the fact that the difference varies quite a bit by race, so culture/economics could also play a role here.)

The people who rail against the fact that men and women are equal and should be treated as such can be safely considered sexist.

I don't think it's unreasonable for a person to focus on one set of issues over another, particularly if that set of issues affects them personally. At any rate, that wouldn't indicate a flaw with feminism itself, rather, a flaw with some of its proponents.

What do you mean, "call everything rape"? The only things I've heard called rape are, well, rape. Can you provide examples and/or clarification?