Yes, We Still Need Feminism
"Why is feminism still a thing?", I'm hearing a lot at the moment. "Why should there be special programs/quotas/positions set aside for women? That's not promoting equality, that's saying women are above men".
Well, okay, let's take that as read. Women have equal rights under the law after all, so if women are paid less than men, or are underrepresented in positions of power, or are disproportionately the victims of relationship violence, or are increasingly retiring in poverty, it's not the fault of centuries of structural inequality; it's because women just aren't as good as men.
Rather a misogynist view, isn't it?
Yes we still need feminism.
I've picked up two points on this that are a little unfair.
ReplyDelete1. Women increasingly retiring in poverty.
Whilst stastitically this may be very well true. We should also remember that a retiree being self-funded is not yet guarenteed. Many people (both sexes) who are retiring now started working long before there was any superannuation and the best they could hope for was the age old pension.
This "statistic" combines with the rise of women in the workforce in the 1960's and the problem of superannuation not being compolsory until the the late 1980's, early 1990's.
But lets ignore the facts as to why it blame it on the man.
2. women are paid less than men
Unfortunetely until women in significant numbers start working in the resource sector and traditional trades this is always going to be the case.
You can not compare wages between men and women due to the fact that occupations have different pay scales. IE a miner earning 150,000 in Western Australia and a female retail worker in Sydney earning 30,000.
There are factual reasons for this percieved inequality which in most cases only exists in the minds of feminist academics who do not look at the facts of a market based labour market or the fact that it can take decades for certain policies (superannuation) to bare fruit and benifit all of society.
Actually your point about comparable pay rates between industries is illuminating. Traditionally, female dominated industries were seen as less valuable than male dominated industries - hence the lower pay - it is something that thanks to the hard work of many feminists is starting to be addressed now. (There are academic feminists, then the many women who are out there every day working on issues)
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