Equal But Not

I had a fantastic discussion with two of the women in my community earlier this week. We were talking about the idea of feminism in relation to Hillary Clinton running for president. I (not being American) said I was in support of the idea on the basis that she is a woman and that would be really good for feminist ideals. This lead to the discussion of feminism in general.


For the past century women have fought to be seen as equals to men. They have gained the right to vote, the right to hold property, the right to divorce, the right to abortion and a great deal of other things that we didn't have prior to the 20th century. We have gained the right to educations and have begun to be seen as equals. We now have the right to choose career or family. Somehow though, we are still not equals. We do not have equal pay and we do not get equal respect in the workplace. There are more sexual harassment suits than ever and women are still targets for violence.


The reason for many of these things is that women are not equal to men. We aren't. I may sound like a traitor to the cause of feminism right now but I'm really not. We were not created to be men. We are not supposed to be the same as men. That doesn't mean that we are less worthy than men. We have just as much right to pay raises, promotions and most importantly, respect and safety. We have the right to choose a career over family and we don't always need advice on how to combine the two of these. Men don't. Why should we?


To acknowledge the fact that we are women and to use it does not make us less than equal to men. It really doesn't. We don't have to look like men, or act like men in order to gain respect. We shouldn't have to and we shouldn't try.


I tend to subscribe to the theory of lipstick feminism. This is the idea that women don't have hide their sexuality of their femininity in order to be respected in the world. It is actually the idea that we can use our sexuality and still stand strong for what we desire from the world, equality and respect. It is the idea that we can be attractive and still be taken seriously. We can be who we are and still be seen as worthy of respect in the world.


We are equal to men, but we are not. We are in the unique position of bearing children in the world and that is not something that men can do. We are not always equal to men. We aren't. We have the right to many things, but we don't need to change who we are in order to get them. We are equal, but we are not. And we have no reason to pretend to be.