The current state of the world shows how desperately we need the feminist revolution to persist, no matter what preconceived notion one may have against it.
When people think of feminists, they may think of screaming, shirtless women violently protesting, screaming profanities, lighting bras on fire. The whole shebang.
Because of this, both men and women find it hard to back up such a fight. Who would want to add fuel to an already out-of-control fire?
However, feminism today is much different than what this stereotype portrays. It is simply a movement advocating for women’s rights on all levels of society – for equality among the sexes and genders.
Feminists are not wild, uncooperative, hormonal teenage girls who want a world with only women. Real feminists are both women and men, who are simply speaking up for the injustice that is paid to women on social, political and economic grounds.
In 2013, women on average earned only 78 cents to every man’s dollar in the workplace, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. There are 20 women to the 80 men serving in the U.S. Senate.
Victim blaming is still prevalent after traumatic experiences such as rape or domestic violence cases and cat-calling is an everyday occurrence that demeans and puts fear into a woman but is still ignored or deemed socially acceptable.
Still not sold?
Around the world, girls constitute more than half of the children out of school and only 30 percent of girls are enrolled in secondary schooling. In low-income countries, 100 million women are illiterate.
Women in various African and Middle Eastern countries still have to endure female genital mutilation. Militant groups utilize inequality to target marginalized groups of women and children, and women are raped and murdered as terror tactics.
Women have a substantial amount to be angry about. But we should all be angry.
If women were held at an equal standard to men, more girls would be educated, meaning higher standards of living, improved socioeconomic growth, decreased domestic and sexual violence, decreased support for militancy and future educated generations.
Investing in women is investing in the future. Acknowledging that women offer just as much as men will advance us in ways where it has been hindered before.
Women and men need to fight together. We should all be feminists, because we all need feminism.
Burrows, a freshman journalism major from Mint Hill, is an opinion writer.
STORY: Lauren Burrows, Opinion Writer