How does it feel to be a young female in today’s society?
I am Kitty, I am 14 years old and I am angry.
Recently I read the feminist manifesto by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
And I wholeheartedly agree with every word she wrote. One quote in particular really caught my attention “the problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be, rather than recognising how we are, imagine how much happier we would be…..if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.” My gender defines me as a person,it frames my behaviours. There is a small box into which, I, as a female fit into; how to behave, how to dress, what is acceptable and what isn’t, i’m not saying that this is not the case for men, it is, but because men are so superior-it’s much easier for them to adapt and live within this box. They can have almost everything they want, provided they work hard enough for it, and can get away with anything and everything, as society has a tendency to dismiss half of the populations behaviour, “boys will be boys”. No they wont.
Boys must be held accountable for their actions.
Recently, Brett Kavanaugh has been all over the news, he is now a lifelong supreme judge on the court of justice. While he was being nominated for this position, by none other than the U.S President Donald Trump, three woman spoke out against Kavanaugh, all apparently victims of sexual assault. Three separate woman, one of whom was allegedly gang raped, all ignored….and now we have Kavanaugh in such a high position of power. Some people wonder why Trump is so busy fretting about Mexicans sending rapists to America, when, (some people believe), he has sent one to the supreme court. The next time someone tells me that women are listened to, that accusations ruin a mans life, I will remind them that Donald Trump was excused of sexual assault and was then elected President of the most powerful country in the world, that Brett Kavanaugh was excused of alleged sexual assault and is now a lifelong judge on the highest court of his nation.
Why were all these women ignored? Why is one mans testimony worth so much more than THREE woman? Because woman are seen as an inferior sex. And that is what is concerning and what scares me. Even in today’s society ,many people have misguided and misogynistic views on women, the average wage for a woman per hour in the U.K is 9.1% less than the average hourly wage for men and that’s not taking into account the fact that women do more part-time work then men.
I was in my kitchen, the other day, listening to the radio. People were discussing a scientist, Alessandro Strumia. He had made an offensive comment, which had caused a lot of controversy: “physics was invented and built by men, it’s not by invitation”. What he didn’t really seem to realise was that, yes, there are barely any woman in the field of physics, and yes, physics was mainly built by men, but why is that? Because women have been discriminated against again and again, only allowed to work a very small number of certain jobs, which, un-coincidentally have much lower wages such as a retail worker or an assistant of some kind, because we are not capable of much anything else, we have not had the chance yet to prove ourselves, so how can we if men continue to not allow us to do so.
Professor Strumia had not acknowledged the glass ceiling that has been prevalent in society for hundreds and hundreds of years. The ceiling under which every woman is trapped so that her success is limited. “Glass” because to some it is invisible, they do not recognise this glass ceiling and that there are obvious limits to how successful a woman can become, and that is exactly what makes it so hard. How can we move forward, if no-one will acknowledge what needs improvement. Many people have this attitude, claiming that “I understand it used to be hard for woman….but everything’s great now”
Then how come if a man and a woman do the exact same job, with the exact same qualifications, the man will always have a higher salary, just because……. he is a man?
Why is there such a small number of women at the head of their corporations?
Or, to quote the Kenyan peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, “the higher up you go, the less women there are.” This is party because (as well as many men being naturally sexist towards women) lots of men feel threatened by women of greater authority than themselves. Why do men have such fragile egos that they feel intimidated by a woman of higher power? Maybe, not only does the way we treat women in today’s society have to change, but the way we treat young men too. Toxic masculinity needs to be addressed, and I will put it simply, men can cry, men can show their emotions, they don’t have to appear “tough” 24/7.
I have to admit, I am a little scared of what the future may bring and what barriers I will have to face as sexism towards woman is still extremely prevalent in society. To me the fact that I will have to encounter and deal with people bringing me down and holding me back just because of my gender is incomprehensible. Why should it matter? I have my own set of skills, my own strengths and weakness. What I can and can not do is not based on my gender. I am my own person. You cannot categorise half the worlds population under one label and dismiss us. Our voices deserve to be heard.
That is what everyone must understand.
