Fight for Women’s Rights… Still a Long Road Ahead

“Young women consider feminism passé and believe the fight for equality is over,” The Nation columnist, Katha Pollitt told a packed auditorium of Stanford University students – mostly women – on February 23, 2011. “After all, today the majority of undergraduates – and PhDs – are women, and women’s studies programs continue to flourish on college campuses.”
Pollitt, who was invited by Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research to kick off its 2011 Jing Lyman Lecture Series, confirmed that women hold jobs today that were unthinkable 40 years ago, including serving on the Supreme Court.
“Women are surging forward. It’s about brains not brawn. Today, a smart, energetic woman believes she can blast her way through just about any obstacle,” Pollitt continued. “And, for the most part, women no longer have to worry about reproductive rights. Plus, birth control has vastly improved so abortions are fewer.”
“The world is more congenial toward women than men,” Pollitt affirmed, and cited examples. Whereas men held the majority of jobs in manufacturing and construction, colleges today are producing women with superior business acumen, more energy and ambition, better verbal skills and a stubborn optimism. Once the bastion of men, women are also formidable negotiators. Women thrive under meritocracy. Moreover, women are less likely to become alcoholics and drug addicts, and commit crimes,” Pollitt chortled.
“However the fight isn’t over,” Pollitt exhorted the audience. “Don’t render feminism obsolete.”
First, women are still paid less than men in just about every field.
“Despite the fact that more men than women lost their jobs early on in the latest recession, they still want to control women whether they’re bringing home the bacon or not,” Pollitt contends. “Men aren’t pitching in at home. In the U.S. a mere 150,000 men are stay-at-home dads compared to 5 million women homemakers.
Even before babies are born the dye is still cast for women. “Women with children and a profession are perceived to be less committed to their jobs, while men who are fathers experience virtually no discrimination,” says Pollitt. “The world is still run as if women are at the world’s disposal.”
Violence and sexual discrimination also still plague women, from physical assault to hate-filled comments and death threats on women’s blog posts.
Bonita Banducci, adjunct professor at Santa Clara University teaches a course to graduate engineering students on gender competencies and communication, and concurs with Pollitt’s perspective on verbally violent in response to women blogging or commenting on the Internet.
“If the subject matter on the Internet is by, about, and for women, vitriolic comments will often drive women to curtail their engagements,” Banducci says. Moreover, contends Banducci, “We still lack women’s voices in the media; we’re not creating enough, varied role models.”
Not only are far fewer women being published in mainstream media, the media still promotes gender propaganda and unhealthy female images. “Anorexia is at an all time high,” Pollitt tells the young women in the audience.
Finally, Pollitt challenged the complacency of young women everywhere. “As a woman, if the world was at your disposal how would you run it? Will you transform society into an equal one?”