Feminism and Equality?

FEMINISM

AND

EQUALITY?

BY Natalie De Los Rios

Feminism and Equality?

“Feminism- is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist advocates or supports the rights and equality of women.’’

        To start things off, Yes I am a woman, and of course I believe that all should have equal rights; man, woman, black, white. But, I am not what you would consider a feminist. Equality, do we have the rights as man and vice versa, there is a little bit of a debate on that subject. To be clear I am not attacking feminists, I just have different views on this subject. Above I have a definition you could find on an article in Wikipedia, defining the word feminism, which it sounds about right, but let us take a long look at it. Our common goal, if I understand correctly, to be accepted in our work environment, to be treated fairly in personal life, political, and just in general day to day life. I was very fortunate to be born in a time where women are actually allowed to do a lot of things, for example; voting, there are women in power; judges, council members, Hilary Clinton is currently running for president. Women have come a long way and have achieved as much as man. But what about the man, there comes a time where you need to sit, think and question; Am I receiving equal rights, or is it special treatment because I am a woman?

                In one category where the situation favors women are child custody. Of course, women should be the first choice, because we did give birth, went there an enormous amount of pain to have our children. Let us be honest, that does not make you a good mother, or what is best for a child. A woman could accomplish everything I just stated and not be nurturing, at all, and the father might just be the stay at home dad, knows their children like the back of their hand. Unfortunately, that does get ignored in court. In an online article, children’s bureau, a study was done and showed that more than 80% of reported child abuse was committed by parents alone, 40% was committed by the biological mother, 18% by the biological father, 16% by both mother and father, so on. This is all numbers, and it is going by reported incidents. Sadly, I see every day, the mother being the aggressive parent, while the father is more nurturing. For example, I know a couple with two children, the mother works every day and fully supports her family, which I do applaud, and the father stays home with their two medical needs children, autistic, When I saw the mother with her children, one would automatically assume she can handle them, it was then I realized that was not the case. She didn’t know what to do with her boys, she had gotten very frustrated with them and seem at wits end. Now the father had come in after and explained how his wife was the sole provider for so long that her time with the children was limited and she didn’t know how to really care for them like he did. In a case like this, if they were to separate the children would automatically go to the mother even though that is not the best choice for them. But, that’s all my opinion. [pic 1]

         Our justice system, we can question it all we want, argue, but in the end it will never make sense. A study done by Sonja B. Starr from the University of Michigan law school, showed that women were less likely to serve the same sentencing as men. A man receives 63% longer sentence than women, and women were also likely to avoid charges and convictions entirely. Her theory is that one of the factors causing this would be the “girlfriend theory’’(women might be viewed as mere accessories of their male romantic partners) and assuming women are more cooperative with the government. She had also stated that she cannot prove gender discrimination in the justice system, this is a good reason to suspect that disparate treatment may be the cause.