Gender Equality

"A woman is human.
She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man.
Likewise, she is never less.
Equality is a given.
A woman is human." - Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calender of Inspiration

Many religions in the world worship female godness. From the Egyptian goddess of nature and magic Isis, the Chinese goddess of sea Mazu, to Mother Mary in Christianity, women have always appear in many culture's mythology. And then there's the female that is worship most of them all, mom. We worshipped her so much that we called our homeland Motherland and the nature Mother Nature. It's obvious that the women are worshipped in many cultures on Earth. But at some point in time, the status of women and men were reversed. Somehow, women became discriminated by men, refused of basic human rights such as education and getting a job, and is only seen useful as a caretaker. So today I'm going to talk about gender inequality.

We're now living in a better world where sexism wasn't as widespread as before. With the help of the Internet, many people now aware that women are needed to be treated equally. No longer are the times when female were heavily mistreated by virtually everyone in society. Now, in most countries, women are allowed to vote, to learn, to love, to make their own decisions, and live their life the way they wanted. But even with all the freedom and rights that women have fought for, societies nowadays are still crawled with traces of discrimination against female, from school, work, to relationship, and family.

One of the most common signs of sexism is the gender pay gap in work places. According to many studies, women are usually paid lower than their male counterpart, regardless of individual skills. It doesn't matter if the job is corporate, government, education, retail, or medical, if you look at the chart showing earnings between male and female employees, you would find that women's earning are usually, if not always, lower than male's. Why is that?

There are many factors that researchers came up with to explain the reason behind this peculiar income disparity. From the difference in physical, mental, and emotional strength, education and experience, to social status, pregnancy, marriage... women are being unconsciously discriminated not only by men, but also by women, too. A study at Yale University where leaders at scientific research institutes were given identical job applications with either male or female names. Participants, both men and women, rated male applicants as more qualify and hireable than their identical femal applicant. These participants also selected a higer starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. As you can see, even when a woman has the identical skills as a man, she's still being short-changed by employers, which results to lower income and less chance for promotion.

Up there is just one of the many instances in society where women are discriminated. Women are also being unfairly treated in families, relationships, marriage... It's important that we stand up and defend women from discrimination because they are just as good as men. I once heard this saying about gender equality that I really like: "The only thing men can do that women can't is growing a beard." And even that's possible for some women. In a society as advance as it is today, we need to be aware of the fact that women are just as capable of doing what men do, therefore they should be treated equally as men. I'm not saying that women should do everything that men do (there are things that men are more suitable doing), but that we should treated women equally and indiscriminately. If you find this interesting, please share it with people you know so that gender inequality can be erase and women all around the world can be just as free as men.