Do you support gender based equal opportunity (also known as employment equity or in the U.S. affirmative action) hiring policies?

Gender based equal opportunity means making women’s rights equal to men’s, and men’s rights equal to women’s. I agree 100% that women and men should be treated equally in every aspect, including pay, hours, maternal and paternal leave, benefits, treatment, etc. If everyone was treated equally, with equal opportunities, and fair unbiased treatment, then I suppose there would be nothing left to fight for.

             Slowly, society is starting to understand that everyone should be treated equally. Decades ago, there were protestors for African American (and Canadian) rights, then women’s rights, now it’s women’s and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) rights. I think it’s about time for society to wake up, realize we are all human, deal with it, and carry on accordingly.

This isn’t going to happen overnight, but eventually (probably after my lifetime) gender based equal opportunity, and the fact that we needed legislation for it, will be laughed at by future generations. We laugh at the silly right-wingers for protesting interracial marriage back in the day, and future generations will be laughing at us for making a big deal about equal opportunities for men, women, and everyone. They will probably say something like, “Well duh, of course everyone is equal, we’re all just human after all.”

This topic taps the border of the religious nutters who are running around trying to make birth control and abortion illegal, while giving absolutely zero benefits to young, unemployed, single mothers, and children living in poverty. It’s a crazy world, our future is going to have to take care of it, and they’re going to be scolding the memory of us living in the back-wards times.

One day we’ll have equal rights and opportunities for all. One day. 

Am I a feminist?

I wasn’t sure what a feminist was even after reading up, so I decided to look at some definitions.

A feminist literally means that you are a person who supports feminism. There is a large misunderstanding throughout society that you must be a woman to be a feminist. This is certainly not true. Being a feminist simply means that you support feminism. Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. In addition, feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist is "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women (Oxford English Dictionary, 2012)."

                

Of course I am all for women’s rights and the equality of women, but I would hardly consider myself an advocate. I’m not a campaigner, backer, activist, sponsor, or any other synonym relating to the word “advocate.” Thoughts of women’s rights rarely, if ever, enter my daily thinking mind. The only time I consider women’s rights is when I hear something outrageous, like how some states are able to fire women for using birth control, or states that do not allow abortions. These are pretty much the only times I pause to think about feminism. In fact, until this course, I did not even have a clear definition as to what a feminist or feminism is.

                Now that I am more informed, I think that I can say with confidence that although I appreciate the rights I have as a woman, no, I am not a feminist. I have never protested for women’s rights (or protested for anything, if we want to get right down to it), I never follow politicians who have the interests of women at heart, and I’ve never particularly cared about women’s rights in a historical sense, and our journey to get where we are today. I’m not sure if that makes me apathetic, lazy, or just uncaring, but this course will hopefully open my eyes to a new, unexplored, world for me.

                I think a lot of people’s views of what it means to be a feminist is skewed. Prior to reading the definition of a feminist, I simply thought that a feminist was an angry man-hater with a personal vendetta against men, or someone who women who are not feminists. I always hear the words, “You just put the women’s rights movement back 40 years” or some variation of this saying when a girl says she would be happy being taken care of financially by a man and wants to rear children at home and be a house wife. I don’t think an individual woman’s wants and desires could put the women’s movement back and erase all of that hard work. I think women should have the right to choose to do whatever she wants with her life and body, and no one should condemn her for that (unless it’s hurting someone else, of course).

                In short, yes I enjoy the benefits I have as a woman born in this day and age, but no I am not a feminist.