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Feminism And The Gender Equality Myth Research Paper

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Vinson Yau
POLS&C 101
Reading Response 1
02/14/2017
Feminism and The Gender Equality Myth

“Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change…Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.” (Knowles) Just as Beyonce Knowles said, one of the major factors that separates men and women from truly being equal are the different types of opportunities and benefits they receive in today's society.

First, I will begin by discussing and stating facts about one of the major gender inequality issues pertaining to the gender pay gap. Next, I …show more content…

national women’s soccer team. An article from the New York Times, “Pay Disparity in U.S. Soccer? It’s Complicated,” presents statistics and reasons of why the wages of the U.S. soccer team is unfair. The argument stating that the men’s team has brought more revenue over the years may be true but, “...in 2015, the women’s team won the World Cup ...[which] brought in more than $23 million in game revenue, about $16 million more than the federation had projected.” Even with such an outstanding amount of revenue, the U.S. Women's soccer team earned "...about a quarter of what their counterparts on the men’s national team [received]." Not only that, but the women's team must perform at a high level to keep pace financially and play extra games to earn their victory tour money. This is a huge contrast to the men's team because they are paid "...just for showing up." When taken into account of the amount of work the men's and women's team put in, there is a discrete imbalance between the two. This is enough to warrant and question why women are placed at such a disadvantage compared to men. Rich Nichols, the general counsel for the U.S. women’s soccer team association, reasonably argues players should earn "..equal pay for equal work." Arguments on the opposing side that state “U.S. Soccer also counts the women’s biweekly salaries (compensation that the male players do not receive) as a mitigating …show more content…

Using Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy, feminism is defined as "...both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms. " It is important to note that there are several definitions that feminism covers with arguments being made of what sexism consists of and the measures needed to be taken. However it can be generally agreed that it stands as a belief "...motivated by the quest for social justice, feminist inquiry [that] provides a wide range of perspectives on social, cultural, economic, and political phenomena." Now the feminism wave model consists of three waves. The first wave feminism began in the mid 19th century up until the 19th amendment where women were fighting for basic political rights. During the 1960's to 1970's, second wave feminism occurred as a fight for greater equality across areas such as education, work, and at home. And from the 2000s to today, the third wave of feminism is the fight for a greater importance in identity. This is largely a bigger focus on the interconnected features including race, religion, nationality, and gender. These views are what stands out the most as feminists continue to put more emphasis and recognition of intersectional feminism. With that, gender equality can further expand so that women can be given

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