a reminder on international women's day
03/04/2023a reminder on international women's day
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Content includes discussion of misogyny and abuse.
Every year, International women’s day takes place on March 8th. Every year, we celebrate the progress and achievements of women in respect to society, economics, culture, and politics.
And every year, we must take a moment to remember that there is still much progress to be made, and so much existing progress to protect.
Ideological and actual progress is being reversed in many places and online. Some examples:
Rising waves of anti-feminism (UNITED STATES) (SOUTH KOREA) (CHINA) (ONLINE)
The rising popularity of “tradwife” influencers, who promote the idea that women who completely devote themselves to housework and childcare are superior to women who work.
Influencers glorifying lives of financial dependency on boyfriends and husbands, mocking women who “want to split 50/50” and implying that they are much more miserable.
The increasingly popular idea that feminism has actually reduced choice for women by forcing them to work
[The last point is typically believed by the influencers glorifying “tradwifism” and female financial dependency on men.]
An example is a recent Instagram reel I viewed, reposted from Tiktok, by a “feminine lifestyle blogger” with the sound “what if I don’t want to live the way you live” and “oh don’t be ridiculous, Andrea, everybody wants to live this way”.
The reel has 64 800 likes. The original Tiktok probably has more. Many of these likes are from young, impressionable people—many of them, girls. There are many, many more posts online similar to this.
The Reality is VERY Different:
Most of the progress toward women’s rights increases choice, rather than decreases it. Prior to women’s entry into the workforce and laws enabling or protecting this entry, most women had no choice but to do housework and childcare.
Without women working, there would be much less economic activity, fewer goods and services produced, and fewer job opportunities (which are created when innovation and economic growth happens).
Everyone, including anti-feminists, would probably have a much lower standard of living and worse quality of life if it wasn’t for the progress in gender equality.
Female anti-feminist influencers owe their platforms and career to feminism
Feminists fought for women’s rights to have their own credit cards, bank accounts, and property. Without these rights, many of these influencers would never have been able to buy the phones and laptops they create content with, or save the money they earn from influencership (e.g. sponsorship, pay-per-view).
Many important milestones in gender equality have only been recently reached:
1960’s and 1970’s - Banks in the United States could still refuse credit cards to unmarried women, and require husbands’ signatures to issue credit cards to women. It was only after the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 became law that banks were forbidden to refuse a woman a credit card because of her gender. (Source).
1971 was the first year that women in Switzerland could vote (Source).
2015 was the first year that women in Saudi Arabia could vote (Source).
Women around the world still struggle with accessing their basic rights:
Around 130 million girls worldwide still lack an education (Source).
The United States has no mandatory paid maternity leave (Source).
75 countries still restrict women’s property rights (inheritance, collateral, etc.) (Source).
104 countries—over half of the world’s countries—have laws preventing women from working in certain industries, making 2.75 billion women’s ability to earn and save money much less than that of men’s (Source).
There is always more progress toward gender equity to be made, either to fix current inequities or to prevent gender inequity from returning.
To learn more, explore:
WRITTEN BY: GRACE LIANG
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