I have gone to school since preschool and there are times, many times, that I really dislike school and wish that I did not have to do that math homework or write that paper or read that chapter for psychology. However, it was not until my sophomore year of highschool when I realized how spoiled I was. It was in my sophomore year that there was a presentation at school about the girls in Niger who did not get an education. The girls had to drop out of school as soon as they got their period because they could not go to school while on their period due to the fact that they did not have feminine products at their disposal. This made them miss too much school that they could not keep up and to leave school. This baffled me. The fact that girls were not able to finish their education for a reason that they could not help; they were not able to finish school because of their gender, because of biology. This made me really upset and opened my eyes to how lucky I was to be able to go to school and get such a quality education. With this, this blog post will focus on girls who are not allowed to have a good education.

There are more than 130 million girls who are not in school. Why is that? This number is way to big. Each and everyday girls face barriers to get an education that are caused by poverty, cultural norms and practices, poor infrastructure, violence, and fragility. War and violence reduce opportunities for girls to go to school and continue their education because girls and women are the most vulnerable group in the population and they are the first ones to get things taken away from them during hard times. Another reason for girls not being able to continue their education is due to child marriage. When girls get married, they are expected to have children and take care of the home, not go to school and realize their full potential. Also, an proper education can be expensive and the high cost of school can prevent marginalized and impoverished girls from getting an education. In these underdeveloped countries, boys are going to get an education before girls so if they are more boys in a family, the girls have no chance of getting an education. Also, child labour is another reason that girls are not in school. In many cases, it is more important to be bringing in money than getting an education so girls are put to work to help support their families. There are many health risks to girls not having an education. Uneducated girls are more likely to get sexually transmitted diseases, get pregnant earlier, and have other health complications.

The countries with the highest level of uneducated girls are the more underdeveloped ones with weaker economies. The ten worst countries for girls to get an education are:

1. South Sudan
2. Central African Republic
3. Niger
4. Afghanistan
5. Chad
6. Mali
7. Guinea
8. Burkina Faso
9. Liberia
10. Ethiopia

In these ten countries, statistics show that more than half of the girls of the population are married before their 18th birthday and on in for are child labourers. However, in the countries that actually spend a significant portion of their budget on education, like Niger and Ethiopia, factors that prevent girls from gaining an education are extreme poverty, child marriage, and cultural and economic barriers.  

When girls are educated, it strengthens economies and creates more jobs, it makes communities more stable, and education of girls allows for healthier citizens, and therefore, healthier families. Aside from making sure that girls are getting a quality education, it is important to make sure that all girls feel safe in school and learn in a way that will allow them to be able to compete in the labor market of today’s world. This is not just girls issue or a gender issue, this is an economic issue and a global issue.

Girls not being able to get an education is clearly an issue that needs to be fixed. This is something that we, as a society, need to work towards each and every day We need to raise money for the underdeveloped countries in order to allow them to let girls go to school and we need to publicize how it is just as important for women to get an education as it is for men to get one. The World Bank, which is an organization that focuses on helping refugees and those in underdeveloped countries, has a plan to help these girls in these countries. Some of their ideas include:

• Providing conditional cash transfers or scholarships to these countries.
• Reducing the distance of schools in relation to the girls.
• Targeting boys and men to be a part of these discussions, particularly about cultural and societal practices.
• Ensuring gender-sensitive curriculum.
• Hiring and training qualified female teachers.
• Building safe and inclusive learning environments for girls.
• Ending child marriage.
• Addressing the violence against girls and women.

If we work together, we can do this. It will be hard and take time, but it will be worth it. We cannot let girls live like they are in those countries listed above. This simply cannot stand. Education for all.  

Please consider donating to the Malala Fund to help these girls get an education.

Feminist movements have made a big splash in Hollywood, especially at award shows, like the Golden Globes. As talked about in my other blog post, the Golden Globes was a way for people to talk about the Time’s Up Movement and spread the word about sexual assault and discrimination of women in the workplace. With this, everyone was curious to see how that would transfer to the Oscars. Unfortunately, there was not much discussion about Time’s Up as compared to the Golden Globes. Instead of the discussion happening on the carpet, it happened more on the actual Oscar stage.

This Sunday, six women took home the legendary Oscar trophy with them. Six. That has been the fewest number of female winners since 2012 where only four women won. With this, only four women took home Oscars that were in categories not actually designated for women. Aside from actress in a leading and supporting role, women won for best animated feature, best makeup and hairstyling, vest short film, and best original song.

Women have had the most Oscar wins in 2014 and 2016, bringing in 12 awards which is two times the amount of 2018. People were not happy about this and many people, especially celebrities, had a lot to say about it. One of the women who had the most to say about it was the Oscar-winner herself, Frances McDormand. During her speech, she said, ““All the female honorees, stand with me — all the women. Look around because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.” Also, when asked how she felt about demanding more gender and ethnic diversity in Hollywood, she said, “Oh, yeah. Majorily. We’re not going back.” Emma Stone, who presented the award for Best Director, also pointed out the male-dominated award ceremony by simply stating, “These four men and Greta Gerwig created their own masterpieces this year,” which was met with an overwhelming applause.

While these two, among other women, were enthusiastic about the progress of women in Hollywood, other’s were not so happy about it. For example, director Sam Taylor-Johnson is not happy with the “progress” that has been made, saying, “How many times have we felt, ‘Oh there’s going to be change,’ only to turn the corner and be let down.” Fellow actress, Laura Dern, is discouraged yet hopeful, saying, “It’s changing.” However, she notes that the fight has to continue each and everyday. Talk alone won’t be able to fix this, it will only take action, especially from inside the system. It has been clear that white men are the ones who are winning, yet not many of them even mentioned the Time’s Up Movement or any of the politics surrounding women in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who is the first woman nominated for best cinematography, was very upset with these men who did not step up and talk about this issue, “Why can’t a man get up there and talk about some of the same issues that we’re all facing?”  

With this, here are some women who made history in this year’s 2018 Oscars:

1. Rachel Morrison:  first woman ever nominated for cinematography Oscar for her work on the movie, Mudbound. She also did the cinematography for Black Panther, which is getting much praise for its special effects.
2. Greta Gerwig: she was the only women nominated for directing as well as the only solo woman nominated for screenwriting in 2018.
3. Mary J. Blige: the first person in Oscars history to be nominated for both Supporting Actress and Music (Original Song) for the same film.
4. Ildikó Enyedi: the only female director nominated in her category of Foreign Language Film. She is only the fourth woman to win in this category in history.
5. Tatiana S. Riegel: she is the only woman nominated in
   the category for Film Editing because of her work on I, Tonya.

Feminism. This word has been passed around all over the past couple of years, especially most recently. Today, almost everyone knows what the word “feminism” means. However, this was not the case twenty years ago, this was not even the case five years ago. In 2018, we are more focused then ever on feminism and women’s right. This is very important and clearly a good thing but we need to keep this momentum going. One of the problems with the this movement is that people do not understand what feminism means. Many people have the wrong idea of feminism and think that is is simply hating men. This, however, is not the case in the slightest. With this, we need to be teaching everyone, especially the younger generations, about feminism, what it means, and how to apply it.

Of course, women have a long way to go to be recognized equally to men but if we continue this fight, with both men and women of all ages and ethnicities working together to put an end to this, we will succeed.

It’s official! The 2018 Winter Olympics have begun in PyeongChang, South Korea. Don’t worry if you missed the first couple days because the games will take place until February 25th, so you have plenty of time to catch up. This is an Olympics of many firsts and records. 92 countries will be performing in this Winter Olympics which is the highest number of any Winter Olympics in history. There are also 242 athletes on the United States team which is a record for any country in the Winter Olympics. This Olympics also showcases the first openly gay male figure skater, Adam Rippon, who actually hails from Scranton, Pennsylvania. While there have been gay Olympic athletes, they have only ever came out after the Olympics, never beforehand which is what Adam Rippon has done.

So while it is great that there are openly gay men in the Olympics, it is important to also talk about women in the Olympics as well, considering this is a blog about women’s rights. The fact is this: women are still not equal to men in the Olympics. There are more men participating in the Olympics than women, still to this day. In 2014, 40.3% of people in the Olympics were women while 59.7% of participants were women. Another fact that is pretty startling is that 2012 was the first year that women have been able to participate in every Olympic sport at the Games. This was just six years ago. Six years ago was the first time that women were able to participate in every sport. This is flabbergasting because you would think by the 21st century, women would have been able to be equal to men in athletics but that was not the case. However, this all depended on which country the women came from because not all countries had the same women’s rights as say, the United States. Also, many sports took longer than others to be open to women in the Olympics. For example, the first sports to be open to women in 1900 were tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian, and golf while the last sport to become open to women in 2012 was boxing. So it only took 112 years for women to be fully included in the Olympics which is 112 years too long in my book.

Here are some key dates in Olympics history of women’s participation in the games:

• In 1900, women first participated in the Games in Paris, France. 22 women out of 997 athletes participated in only five sports: golf, tennis, croquet, and equestrian. In these Games, women made up 2.2% of athletes.
• In 1904, archery became open to women.
• In 1908, skating became open to women.
• In 1912, aquatic sports and events became open to women’s participation.

• 1928 was a very big year for women because it was the year that athletes and gymnastics became open to women. This change in rules bumped up women’s participation in the Games to almost 10%.
• In 1936, skiing became open for women to participate in.
• In 1960, after 60 years of women participating in the Olympics, women made up over 20% of participants in the Games.
• In 1981, two women were actually co-opted to be IOC Members. This means that they were put on the Olympic board and were able to help make decisions about the Olympics.
• In 1996, the first women’s sports was introduced: softball.
  • It is important to note that softball is no longer part of the Olympcis.
• In 2000, the IOC World Conference on Women in sport adopted the following resolution: The Olympic Movement must reserve at least 20 percent of decision-making positions for women within their structures by the end of 2005.” This was very important for women in the decision-making process of the Olympics and gave them a voice in the Games.

• The amendment made in 2000 was changed in 2012 at the 5th World Conference on Women and Sport, “The IOC should revisit and review the minimum number of women to be included in leadership roles which it set for its constituents, and set up a mechanism to monitor and ensure that this minimum number is being respected.”
• Finally in 2012, women participated in all sports at the Olympics when boxing was made open for women to participate in.

Now here are some important women who made great strides in the Olympics:

• In 1972, Lorna Johnston was 70 years when she rode at the 1972 Games and became the oldest woman to ever compete in the Olympic Games.
• In 1984, Joan Benoit was the first women’s Olympic marathon in los Angeles.
• In 1952, Maria Gorokhovskaya set a record for the most medals won by a woman in one Olympics, with two gold and five silver medals.

While the Games have always been a male-dominated industry, women are making strides in creating equality in sports, but we are still not there yet. We have clearly made strides from 1900, going from 2.2% of women participating to almost 50% participating in 2018. We are not at full equality yet but we are almost there. We just have to keep supporting women and making sure that we do not stop making our voices heard until we are at 50% participation for women. Stay tuned in the Olympics and keep your eyes peeled on the amazing women participating like hockey player Amanda Kessel and bobsledder Elena Meyers Taylor. Good luck ladies!

Having access to education is something I have always taken for granted. I have been in school since I was four year old, starting in preschool. Every since then, I have always been in school. I went to elementary school, grade school, middle school, high school, and now college. Not continuing school was never an option for me, I was always going to go to school and get a higher education. Growing up, I always thought school was the biggest drag, I always hated having to do homework and study for tests. There were points as a child where I wanted to just drop out of school because it was so annoying and frivolous to me. However, as I got older, especially in highschool, I realized how lucky I was to get an good quality education, especially as a woman.

So here is the question: why are there more than 130 million girls out of school? Education is a key part of strategies to improve an individual’s well-being as well as a society’s economic and social development. In the Middle East and North Africa, access to education has improved dramatically over the years, especially the past few decades, and there have been encouraging trends in women’s education, but it is still now where it needs to be. The challenges still remain. Many people, especially women, are still excluded from education. Many women are enrolled in school but are not learning anything that prepares them for 21st century job markets.

There are many benefits of female education for women’s empowerment and gender equality are clearly very important:

• As female education rises, fertility, population growth, and infant and child mortality fall and family health improves.
• Increases in girls’ secondary school enrollment are associated with increases in women’s participation in the labor force and their contribution to household and national income.
• Women’s increased wage earnings has had a positive effect on child on nutrition.
• Child of educated mothers are more likely to be enrolled in school and are known to have higher levels of education attainment.
• Educated women are more likely to be more politically active and better informed about their legal rights and how to actually use and exercise them.

Education’s Effects on Reproductive Choices and Employment

225 million women in developing countries are not able to plan their own families which then leads to the 74 million unplanned pregnancies and 36 million abortions every year. With this. education is the single most important determinant of both age at marriage as well as age at first giving birth. For example, those who had no education were married at eighteen and had their first child by twenty years old. Competitively, those who had a secondary education or higher education got married at the age of twenty-three and had their first baby at the age of twenty-five. This shows how women are more prepared to have children and get married when they are more prepared and ready for children. Educated women generally want and have smaller families as well as make better use of reproductive health. They are also more prepared with planning family information and services in achieving their desired family size. Because of this, educated women tend to have healthier families.

A reason that educated women are able to have smaller families is because they can know about contraception. Women who are more educated tend to know about wider range of methods and where to get these available methods. Also educated women are more likely to actually discuss and have a conversation with their husbands about what kind of family they want and how many children they would like to have. An important part of family planning and a woman’s ability to choose the number and timing of their births is key to the empowerment of women as not only mothers, but individuals and citizens. It is a sad reality that many women are not able to choose how they want to live and what kind of family they want. If we want to stop this and empower women, we need to give all women, especially in developing countries, a greater access to education. All women deserve the chance to make their own choices in life and that starts with knowing that they have these rights, and that will happen through education.

Poverty

Poverty is the biggest factor on whether a girl can access education. While children from rich families will most likely attend all levels of basic education, children from poor families are less likely to attend school, and girls have an even smaller percentage of school attendance. So, there are many factors that can contribute to girls not being able to attend school but the biggest one is the lack of free education. One reason for the lack of free education is because governments do not have legal and policy frameworks in place to make free education a reality. With free education not being a reality, it adds a financial burden on families, whether it be in the form of school fees, uniforms, exam fees, or school education to name a few. International human rights law imposes obligations on states to ensure that no one impairs the right to education. There is global action to tackle poverty through sustainable development has focused on gender inequality and education. There have been movements to improve gender equality, quality education and women empowerment by achieving sustainable development and by adopting various goals, targets, and indicators that are aligned with human rights laws.

If you would like to learn more about Women’s Rights and donate, click here!

Throughout history, it is common to say that there are three distinct phases of modern feminism. With this, however, there are many different versions of these three phases and very little consensus on how to characterize these three waves. While some people believe that the roots of feminism started in ancient Greece, others believe that the first real wave of feminism started in the 1830s. The second wave is popularly believed as being in the 1960s and 1980s and the third wave is believed as being in the 1990s to the present. This blog post will look through the three waves and discuss the important aspects of it.

First, it is important to understand what feminism is and what it means. The definition of feminism is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” another definition is the “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.” So basically, feminism at its core is the belief that women are equal to men. It is believed that the ideals of feminism started in ancient Greece with Sappho, who was one of the first feminists who started a school for women. Even Socrates, famous Greek philosopher, also encouraged the first bases of feminism because he believed in the idea of female intellect. However, feminism took a back seat until the 1830s.

This first wave of feminism came from the emergence of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal socialist politics. The wave really began with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. At this convention, three hundred men and women rallied to the cause of equality for women. It was here that Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration which outlined the new movement’s ideologies and political strategies. In this first wave, feminism was interrelated with the temperance and abolitionist movements which got even more groups of people involved in feminism. With women finally asking for rights and wanting their talents to be recognized, Victorian men and women claimed that these women were acting “un-ladylike” and, thus, challenging the “cult of domesticity.” The “cult of domesticity” was a term that Victorian men and women used of what they wanted women to be; it was an idealization of the home and family as a space of moral purity. This ideal also centered on the belief that women were responsible for the moral affairs and everyday activities of the household.  This idea then led to women’s participation in politics, discussions about the right to vote, and an examination of the differences between men and women.

During the 1890s, women took the right to vote even more seriously than ever before with the creation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as the organization’s first president. After more than 30 years of fighting for the right to vote, in 1920, women were finally awarded this essential right with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s during the anti-war and civil rights movement and continued into the 1990s. This wave came right after World War II and focused on women in the workplace, sexuality, family and reproductive rights. There were so many other social movements going on during this time, like the civil rights movement and the efforts to end the war in Vietnam, so it was very easy for feminism to take a back seat during this time period. The second wave of feminism was much more theoretical than the first wave, it was based on a fusion of neo-Marxism and psychoanalytic theory which then began to associate the subjugation of women with the patriarchy, capitalism, and heterosexuality. With this, women were differentiating sex and gender with gender being biological and sex being a social construct. With this, women were becoming more and more free with their own sexuality.

The third wave of feminism began right after the second wave, in the 1990s, and still continues today. The third wave focuses on the many different types of feminists and the varying feminist outlooks, like the ego-cultural feminists, the radicals, the electoral, the academic, and so much more. One aspect of the third wave of feminism was talking about beauty again. Instead of women making themselves look good for their husbands and for men, women decided to define feminine beauty for themselves, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy.

The main issues of third wave feminism are talked about today and we are still working on answers to these issues. This new feminism is global, multi-cultural, and it does not allow for simple answers or artificial categories of identity, gender, and sexuality being proper answers anymore. For example, the wage gap and the reproductive rights of women are two issues that are hotly debated in politics and there is still no agreement to these issues. While there have been efforts to equal out the pay gap, there is still a deadlock about reproductive rights. Another issue that is especially important in the past couple months is the violence, discrimination, and harassment against women, especially in the workplace.

The fact is that women are still not equal to men, even in this 21st century society. We can not rest until we are treated as equals and with respect. We need to work together, men and women, to make this world a safe and prosperous place for everyone, no matter what a person’s gender, ethnicity, income, or sexual orientation.

If you would like to learn more about feminism, click here. It is always good to be educated before you debate or talk about something as serious as feminism!

“We believe that Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights. We must create a society in which women – including Black women, Native women, poor women, immigrant women, disabled women, Muslim women, lesbian queer and trans women – are free and able to care for and nurture their families, however they are formed, in safe and healthy environments free from structural impediments.”–Women’s March on Washington

San Francisco: 100,000.

New York City: 200,000.

Chicago: 300,000.

Los Angeles: 500,000.

These are some numbers from people who attended the Women’s March around the United States. Almost all of the numbers have gone up significantly since last year’s Women’s March. This alone shows how women’s rights are becoming more and more relevant and important in the United States and around the world.

The first official Women’s March was on January 21st, 2017, the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency. On this day, hundreds of thousands of people, men, women, and children, marched toward the United States capital for the Women’s March on Washington. This was a massive protest aimed largely at President Trump and his administration and the threat they posed to reproductive, civil, and human rights. This march did not only occur in Washington D.C, but all around the country. More than 3 million people in cities across the United States participated simultaneously in a global show of support for this movement.

One of the main reasons that the Women’s March occurred on the day that Trump took office was due to the recording of Trump in 2005 of him commenting in a very crude way about how he was able to force himself on women as well as his past sexual conduct towards women.

When Trump was confronted about the recordings, he dismissed it as “locker room talk.” He did not deny the claims but made them seem like it was acceptable for men to speak about women in that way. People were disgraced and angry at Trump for making these comments and when he elected as President of the United States, this made angered people even more. This made people strive to not forget about those comments and show that this crude ways of speaking to and about women and sexual misconduct would not stand.

The whole idea of the Women’s March began on the popular social network, Facebook, the day after the election by Teresa Shook. Shook shared her thoughts on the idea of having a pro-woman march in reaction to Trump’s victory. After thousands of women signed up to match, organizers began planning a large-scale event to march against Trump. One the day of the march, organizers expected about 200,000 people to attend. However, it was soon discovered that many more people supported the cause. On the day of the march, more than 500,000 people showed up to protest the capital. Many of the marchers wore pink clothing. One of the most popular items of clothing that became the unofficial uniform of the march were the pink knit hats with cat ears on top. This hats were named “pussy hats” which is an obvious nod to Trump’s words in the 2005 recording.

The march did not only take place in Washington, however. Once word spread about the idea of a pro-woman march, many sister marches were organized. Marches were held in all 50 states and more than 30 foreign countries, ranging from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. All together, about 4.1 million people took part in the Women’s Marches across the United States as well as 300,000 people worldwide.

Now, there is a Women’s March website and an organization that plans all of the marches and encourages women to vote and to be empowered by each other. The mission of the Women’s March is to “harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change…. Women’s March is committed to dismantling systems of oppression through nonviolent resistance and building inclusive structures guided by self-determination, dignity and respect.”  The Women’s March also developed a diverse group of leaders to produce a platform known as the Unity Principles. These principles represent a new understanding of the struggles of women as well as the vision of the collective liberation of women. The principles did not only focus on women, but on every person that was experiencing discrimination. The main Unity Principles are:

• Ending Violence.
  • Women deserve to live healthy lives without fear of any violence against their bodies. This principle also includes justice in police brutality, ending racial profiling, and dismantling the gender and racial inequities in the justice system.
• Reproductive Rights.
  • This principle states that the government should not put cuts or restrictions on access to reproductive healthcare services, birth control, or HIV/AIDS care. With this, the principle states that everyone, no matter what their income, should have access to legal and affordable abortion and birth control.
• LGBTQIA Rights
  • This principle firmly declares that LGBTQIA Rights are Human Rights and should not be hindered in anyway. The LGBTQIA should have all the rights and protections of every other citizen.
• The other Unity Principles include Worker’s Rights, Civil Rights, Disability Rights, Immigrant Rights, and Environmental Justice. This shows how extensive the Women’s March is and how they are focused on helping so many more people than just women.

The Women’s March is here to stay. Women will not stop fighting for their rights. We cannot stop here, we must continue to fight and stand together in solidarity to show how important this issue is. Women are equal to men and deserve all of the privileges that men have. No matter what gender, ethnicity, age, or sexuality, everyone deserves the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution because we are all created equal. We cannot let anymore discrimination slide. Women are here to stay because together we rise.

If someone asked you to choose between 80 cents and 1 dollar, which would you pick? If someone then asked you to do a job and said that you could pick how much you were paid, 80 cents or 1 dollar, which would you pick? If you were working next to someone, doing the same exact job everyday, doing the same amount of work, same amount of hours, same amount of paperwork, and you found out that they were being paid 20 cents more every hour, would you do anything about it?

Now, I am sure you realize what I am talking about at this point: equal pay between men and women. The wage gap is, unfortunately, a harsh reality for all women. No matter what education or work experience a woman has, they are still getting paid less. To make matters even worse, the gap only seems to get bigger as women’s careers progress.

This issue affects all women of all ethnicities. While white women make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, women of different ethnicities make even less. African American women make 63 cents for every dollar, Latinas make 54 cents, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women make 59 cents and Native women make 57 cents. Also, Asian women make 87 cents for every dollar which is the largest payment of all, but still not acceptable. With this, African Americans lose $21,698 a year, Latinas lose $26,403, Native women lose 24,007, and Asian women lose $7,310.

It is not just your ethnicity that affects the wage gap but also your marital and child status as well as age. For example, women who were never married and without children are paid 76 cents for every dollar paid to men. Also, younger women have a smaller age gap then older women. Women aged 15 to 24 working year round and full time make 88 cents for every dollar than their male counterparts make. However, women aged 45 to 64 working year round and full time make 76 cents for every dollar while women aged 65 and older are only paid 67 cents for every dollar. With these statistics, women would have to work about ten years longer than their male counterparts if they want to make up for this lifetime wage gap. This fact makes it very difficult for women to prepare for retirement and retire at an earlier age.

There are many reasons why there is a wage gap and none of them have serious fact or reason to them. The main reason for this wage gap is simply because women are paid less for the same work. Many studies have shown that women are less likely to be hired for high-wage jobs and even if they are hired, they are more likely to be offered lower salaries. With this, women are being underrepresented in high-wage jobs and overrepresented in low-wage ones. Statistics show that women make up about 58% of low-wage jobs that pay less than $11 an hour and women also make up 69% of jobs that pay less than $10 per hour. These low-wage jobs are ones such as child care workers, home health aids, and fast food workers. A reason why women might not be getting these higher wage occupations is because they are discouraged from entering better paying job fields, like STEM. While the discouragement can be subtle at times, it can also come in the form of harassment and discrimination.

One of the biggest reasons that the wage gap is so prevalent is due to the discrimination of working mothers. It has been proven in many studies that mothers were recommended for lower starting salaries because they were perceived as less competent. Women with children are usually perceived as unable to do their job because of their children. However, fathers were actually recommended for significantly higher pay because they were perceived to be more committed to their jobs compared to men without children. With this increased use and access to contraception, this issue of being discriminated against due to being a mother has gone down significantly because women are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy in this modern day. With the introduction of contraception, women are able to control their own fertility and pregnancies. Being able to control pregnancies now allows women to be able to invest in their own education which can increase their chances of getting a better, higher paying job.

So how do we achieve equal pay for all women of all ethnicities? We need to talk about this issue. We, men and women of all different ethnicities and ages, need to work together to make equal pay a reality. We need to make our equal pay laws even better so that women are able to fight against pay discrimination (The Equal Pay Act is clearly not cutting it anymore). We need to encourage young girls to enter fields that are typically male-dominated, we need to protect caregiver and pregnancy discrimination, and we need to allow workers’ to bargain effectively. This is all easier said than done, but with time, we can do it. We can all work together to make this happen. Join the cause because

Every Woman Matters.

Every Dollar Matters.

Equal Pay Matters.

If you are feeling passionate about this issue and want to do something about it, fight for it. Contact your members of Congress here.

The Golden Globes: all the stars of Hollywood, television and movies, come together in a night of glitz, glamour, and awards. The men wear their best tuxedos while the women wear gorgeous dresses. Women pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the most unique dress on the carpet. Everyone wants to stand out and get on the “Best Dressed List” the next day. However, this year was very different from all the other 74 red carpets at the Golden Globes because there was a general consensus that…

TIME’S UP.

Time’s Up was made by women, for women. It really reached the spotlight at the 2018 Golden Globes. Due to all of the sexual assault allegations that have come to light in the past year, people have taken more serious steps to combating this issue, especially people who have the power of the media, like celebrities.  More and more women were coming forward with their stories of sexual assault, harassment, and even worse. These stories started in Hollywood but it became clear that assault was coming from everywhere, whether it was from politics, law, media, culinary, or the hospitality world. With this, Time’s Up is being spread and publicized by many powerful stars in Hollywood with Reese Witherspoon, Amy Poehler, Steven Spielberg, and J.J Abrams donating and campaigning for Time’s Up.

Time’s Up was first inspired by an open letter by the National Farmworkers Women’s Alliance addressed to all women in Hollywood. The letter pledged these famous women and men of Hollywood to show their support for victims who came forward against Weinstein and other prominent men in politics and Hollywood.

After the letter was released to the public, four women stepped forward to take a start and start this campaign. Maha Dakhil, Michelle Kydd Lee, Hylda Queally, and Christy Haubegger began Time’s Up and were quickly joined by thousands of other women. Women from all different work forces joined this campaign. Every woman worked together to make a plan that included a legal defense fund, plans to change legislation, and a push to bring parity to Hollywood. With this, the overall goal for Time’s Up was aimed at protecting women from sexual harassment in all sectors of the workforce. The goal was to make sure that every woman was included because every woman was as important as any other, no matter what job position, ethnicity, or age. The Time’s Up Legal Defense fund will pay legal support for any person that experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. The Legal Defense fund has already raised $16,534,797 out of the goal of $17 million in just 22 days. This shows how supported and popular this campaign is. Time’s Up also works with the National Women’s Law Center, the Legal Network for Gender Equity, and will even pair an individual with an attorney to fight in court.

Time’s Up became official on January 1st, 2018 when the website went live with a letter from over 300 women who worked in different job sectors. There are no signatures attached to the letter to show unity between all women and it begins with “Dear Sisters” to show how they are all equal. The letter is as follows:

“To every woman employed in agriculture who has had to fend off unwanted sexual advances from her boss, every housekeeper who has tried to escape an assaultive guest, every janitor trapped nightly in a building with a predatory supervisor, every waitress grabbed by a customer and expected to take it with a smile, every garment and factory worker forced to trade sexual acts for more shifts, every domestic worker or home health aide forcibly touched by a client, every immigrant woman silenced by the threat of her undocumented status being reported in retaliation for speaking up and to women in every industry who are subjected to indignities and offensive behavior that they are expected to tolerate to make a living: We stand with you. We support you.”

The letter was short and to the point, making it very powerful. The letter made it clear that no woman should ever have to face sexual harassment or discrimination in any way in any place.

Another reason that this campaign is so popular and widespread throughout the country is due to how celebrities are reacting to it. Instead of simply donating money to the issue, celebrities are publically working with Time’s Up, tweeting about it, instagramming about it, talking about it in interviews, and basically doing everything they can do show how important it is to put an end to sexual harassment. One of the most important ways that the Time’s Up campaign was advertised was through the 2018 Golden Globes. Instead of wearing different colored dresses, all the women and men walking the carpet wore black in solidarity. Everyone wearing black was to show how women stand together and support one another. It is important to note that it was not just the women wearing black, but the men as well.

Another way that women showed their support was by bringing dates who are powerful influences for women all over the world. For example, Emma Watson brought Marai Larasi, the executive director of Imkaan, Meryl Streep brough Ai-jen Poo, the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Michelle Williams brought Tarana Burke who was the founder of the #MeToo movement.

Overall, women are finished with discrimination and assault. Are we finally in a place where we can put an end to discrimination and assault? Only time will tell. It is important that we do not stop here. We need to continue fighting for equality, we cannot let this powerful campaign stop. 2018 is a new year. It is the year where there will be social equality, and an end to discrimination of all types. Yes, it will be hard. But if we continue to work together and support one another, we can do it.

“No more silence. No more tolerance for discrimination, harassment or abuse. Time’s Up.”

If you want to donate to Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, click here!

This blog will focus on civic issues pertaining to gender, sexuality, and human rights. In this modern day and age, these three issues are becoming more and more relevant. Sexuality is becoming more fluid, the lines between gender are becoming less clear, and human rights is talked about much more. This blog will talk about these issues, specifically current events, and debate these issues.