If I was told I would consider myself a feminist someday I wouldn’t have believed it. A feminist?! Why on earth would I want women to be treated better than myself or any other man? And aren’t only women feminists? Don’t feminists think women are superior to men? Aren’t some of them man-haters? Or prefer that men aren’t even part of society at all. But like so many others, I was ignorant.
I was raised in the 1960’s-1970’s: the period in between most women staying home to many working full-time. Men were the bread winners and women were basically providing supplemental income – if they even worked at all. While I never thought that men deserved more pay for the same work, it didn’t really bother me that that was the case. Nor did it bother me then that women were seldom elected to higher offices or were presidents of large companies. In fact, I hardly noticed. A female president? No way! Women weren’t considered to be tough or shrewd enough, nor would they ever have been well-enough respected.
I certainly wasn’t alone. From someone with that belief system bestowed upon me, it was hard not to cringe a little when I saw strong women speaking about injustices and unfairness, and when I heard them telling the world how it should be. It didn’t sink in that these women just wanted to be treated equally. They wanted to be equal to men, nothing more. Who knew? Just as I probably would have raised a middle finger back then to the Black Lives Matter movement – which, just like feminism, is simply seeking equal treatment – and I would have been wrong on that one too.
On average, women make less than men for the same jobs. And women are over-represented in lower-paying roles and under-represented in high-paying roles – further exacerbating the difference in income. So men, on average, have better paying jobs – and when women also have those jobs, they get paid less for doing the same work, on average. This wage gap is often misunderstood: I’ve heard many stories of specific women earning more than specific men (my coworker Sally earns more than me!), or specific companies having more women in high-powered roles than men. But the point is that these trends emerge overall when you look at the big picture. Just look at the number of female CEOs running S&P 500 companies… it’s dismal.
The same goes with minorities – so Black and Hispanic women are really screwed. This is unfair and wrong. And when it comes to women’s ability to lead as well as men, not only is there no reason why they can’t be just as good – and there’s even a case to be made that they might be better. These people have suffered personally; they probably have been victims of their gender or race many times in their life. Thus they have a more realistic awareness of what is happening around us that so many white men, like myself in my early years, are unaware of. Problems must first be identified and understood before being fixed, and who better to understand a problem than somebody affected by it? Imagine there was no such thing as running shoes – who would you seek to identify, understand, and suggest a solution to the problem? A middle-aged white man sitting at a desk? No! A runner, go figure.
We must be aware that women and minorities do not want special treatment. They just want to be treated equally and fairly. This should be a no brainer, but it’s not. Many of us have feelings and opinions that are stamped deep in our brains, that are based on nothing and often influenced by religious nonsense. Show compassion to the less fortunate and everyone else if you can. Whether you are watching a football game or watching your child try to get into college, no one wants the other team or person
Many of us white men are good at not opening our eyes to the facts, or looking the other way, or justifying to ourselves that it’s just fine we get the breaks – and so with white men largely in power, it’s a nasty cycle. Awareness, education, unselfishness, and compassion are the tools we need to combat inequalities of all kinds. Let’s work on making that happen. I’m a feminist, and you should be one too. Are you with me?