Why Feminism Still Matters

And why young women still need it

Born in what seemed like the dark ages, I was raised in the ’50s and ’60s. When my parents talked about careers, I learned most women become teachers or nurses or cooks (professors, doctors and chefs weren’t mentioned). When I told everyone at a family gathering that I wanted to become an astronaut, there were some polite smiles, but real smiles emerged when someone said, “you’re smart enough, dear, but astronauts can’t wear glasses.” Later, in the library, I discovered a book about a woman doctor on the prairie, so I announced I wanted to be a doctor, not a nurse, and I stuck to my guns through junior high school until I realized I didn’t like talking to sick people. (I didn’t know about pathologists back then.)

The point is, my parents weren’t against me being a doctor or an astronaut, they were just uncomfortable because it was outside their class. They were both raised poor and had worked hard and earned themselves college educations and good middle-class jobs, but they wanted the security of seeming like the joneses, and in the middle class in the ’50s, women didn’t work at independent jobs, women got married and maybe had a nice, little side job if they were bored after the kids grew up. I think my intelligent Mom would have been very happy as a research scientist, but it didn’t occur to her to break the mold she had worked so hard to fit into.

Luckily, by the time I was a teenager, feminism had started up, so instead of getting a small side job, Mom got a big job at the IRS and became a supervisor and really enjoyed her job.

I think I had a part to play in that. At all our family dinners, everyone was expected to bring a topic to discuss that we had learned in school or read in the paper. I’d been in love with the Beatles since I was 6 years old, so I followed music news, and rock-n-roll news often led to political news (like Vietnam protests) or feminist news (like bra burnings). My parents were uncomfortable with the protests but encouraged me in independent thought, so we had lots of deep conversations about current issues, and I think my staunch defense of women’s rights had an effect on Mom.

But that’s the thing. A whole lot of families were like mine at the time, just going along with the status quo, except they didn’t support their kids to be different. Security meant getting an education and getting a job, and who cared if women got paid two-thirds of what men got paid, because a job was a job and security was more important than earning power.

As the idea of equal pay for equal work became more acceptable, feminists started branching out into other arenas like demanding to be spoken to respectfully at work, and demanding that men who asked for sex in exchange for a raise be penalized for it. And the people who loved feminists, who maybe weren’t comfortable with the changes, supported the feminists anyway because they loved them. And things started to change.

In parallel, women started demanding that when a woman was raped, police must treat that woman with respect and judges must punish perpetrators, not let the rapists off with just a slap on the wrist. Good men who were appalled at violence to women started calling themselves feminists. Women demanded the right to abort pregnancies from rape, and in the ’60s states started legalizing abortions.

With all these changes going on in the ’60s, you can well imagine we had many lively dinner-table discussions!

So why do young women need feminism now? Feminism’s goal is equality: economically, legally, socially and culturally. Hasn’t all this been achieved for today’s young women already?

America has never had a female president. If you look at the political rhetoric around female candidates, a lot of it is about how they present themselves (dowdy, shrill, cold) and not about their platforms, so women’s minds and competence are still being trivialized. Add race into the mix, and you get a double whammy. The press actively ignored Kamala Harris by not even publishing her views — she got 10% of the press that white male candidates got.

Back in the ’70s in San Francisco, it seemed common knowledge that two lesbian woman of color would always be poor, but two gay white men would automatically get rich.

So, do women in America have equal pay yet? Wikipedia says that, averaged among all full-time workers, women’s salaries are 81–82% of what men make. Yes, that’s up from 60% in the ’60s, but it’s not equal yet. And while slightly more women than men graduate from university, 30% fewer women than men will find jobs in their field (Bloomberg).

Do women in American have autonomy over their own bodies yet? Judicial abortion bans and forced closing of clinics have limited many women’s access to safe abortions to a single clinic in some states. Currently, rape is down to 0.5 per 1,000, compared to almost 3 per 1,000 in the ’70s (Bureau of Justice statistics), which sounds good until you do the math. One rape for every 2,000 women is still 75,000 rapes per year in America.

And social and cultural equality? While women’s participation in the Olympics has risen from 15% in the ’50s to 48% now (per IOC), ESPN’s Sports Center only shows women’s sports 2% of the time (study by University of S. California). Women make up about 50% of visual artists in America, but a study by the Public Library of Science of the collections of 18 major museums found that art by female artists made up only 13% of their collections. And with so many young men describing their girlfriends as “my bitch,” the answer is still a resounding No.

So, while you may say that you’re not a feminist because the image you hold of feminists is too strident, too loud, too angry, or too embarrassing, if you really want equality, then you still need feminism. Claim it, own it, and get what’s rightfully yours.

Then go out and help other women around the world, because while women in the US and Europe have come much closer to achieving equality, many women around the world:

• Can’t get an education (only 39% of rural women attend secondary school, and 500 million women are illiterate [per United Nations])
• Can’t get a job (100 countries have legal restrictions on what work women can do, and in 18 countries women must have their husband’s permission before they can work [per World Bank])
• Can’t get a loan or even a bank account (20% of women, per FINCA)
• Can’t vote (Saudi Arabia and Vatican City)
• Can’t leave the house without a man’s permission (Yemen)
• Are in danger of being raped every time they go to collect water or go to the toilet (examples: 17 million women at risk in Africa [per Thomson Reuters Foundation]; 85% of rural women at risk in India [per Indian government])
• rape victims can be charged with crimes (Saudi Arabia and Morocco)

Women may not have equality in America, but we do have rights. Go exercise your rights! Vote feminists into office, get laws changed, then go out and help save women around the world. There is no true equality until everyone is equal. That’s what feminism is all about.