I Love Women

Respond to this Friday Faithfuls challenge by writing about how much you appreciate all the accomplishments that women have made to advance society, or you could discuss why you think women were held back for so long by men, or go with anything else that you think fits.  March 8th is International Women’s Day and this expanded to become National Women’s History Week and it eventually developed into Women’s History Month, so March is the time to thank all of the women for the contributions that they made which went unnoticed.  The number of men and women in the world is roughly equal, though men hold a slight lead with 102 men for 100 women (in 2020).  Women are the most valuable items on Earth, so we need to treat them well and care for them, and there is a good chance that they will return their love.  Human societies weren’t always male-dominated.  Patriarchy is a social system where men hold the power and that came into being approximately 10–12 thousand years ago with the advent of agriculture when man became farmers.  Women were daughters and then wives and under this system they didn’t question the role they were given and eventually this defined them.

Women still earn less money than men for doing the same jobs, and on the average full-time, year-round working women earned 84% of what their male counterparts earned, which doesn’t seem fair to me.  Discriminatory laws and social norms, which give preference to men in different fields, and this also reduces women to being treated as second class citizens.  In 86 countries, women face some form of job restriction and 95 countries do not guarantee equal pay for equal work.  Globally, women still have only three quarters of the legal rights that are afforded to men.  Equality between men and women will only exist when both sexes are able to share equally in the distribution of power and influence.  Women need to have equal opportunities for financial independence through work or through setting up businesses, so they can enjoy equal access to education and the opportunity to develop personal ambitions, interests and talents.  Men and women must share responsibility for the home and children so women can be completely free from coercion, intimidation and gender-based violence both at work and at home.

The US is trying to take rights away from women which were once protected by Roe vs Wade.  The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abandoning decades of precedent and paving the way for states to ban abortion.  The Supreme Court determined that women do not have a Constitutional right to choose if they want to terminate their pregnancies.  Although women make up 50.8% of the U.S. population, only 19.4% of our national legislators are women.  The US Congress is composed mostly of men who are pro-life supporters, and they decided that the reproductive rights of millions of women should conform to their views.  These men have no idea what it is like to be a woman and they feel that an unborn fetus should have more rights than the mother who is carrying the baby.  These people are making laws which do not affect them or apply to them, so they stand on their moral high horse because they want women to be subordinate to them.

Many women are often overlooked and injustices against women are happening all over the world every day.  Many women are being withheld from receiving an education, they are forced into marriages that they don’t want, and they become victims of physical and/or sexual violence.  Women activists were once called lesbians and men dismissed their grievances thinking that they suffered from hormonal imbalance.  Women have come a long way, but there is still plenty left to do.  Many women still feel too ashamed to report rape, or domestic violence, so they suffer these atrocities in silence.  A lot has changed, but the longest revolution is not over yet, and we need to continue to fight for women’s rights till they are truly treated as equals.  Don’t forget to show respect and kindness to all women, so they can pursue their dreams and reach their potential.  You could always help out with the grocery shopping, pitch in on the cleaning, or cooking as there are so many things that men seem to take for granted.