Feminism Today: Is Feminism Still Relevant To Youths

Introduction

Feminism is the public support of women’s rights against the equality of sexes. But today, many members of the public have different opinions on feminism. Many of them defines feminism as a tool for feminist to dehumanize men and achieve political gain. But there are many reasons why feminism is still relevant and why feminism is no longer relevant. Feminism reduces things like wage gaps, violence against women, the amount of rape each year, it improves Women’s Health and many more. But now, there are statistics that show that Feminism has no more battles to fight and is no longer relevant. In the modern day, feminism is also no longer relevant because not only women have huge problems, men have big problems too and we can't ignore the fact that men are still human and therefore they have their rights too. Lastly, feminism is no longer relevant because the feminist’s aims have changed to self empowerment. This is bad because it only focuses on individuals which promotes selfishness and greed. Hence, the purpose of this investigation is to explain why feminism is still relevant and to explain what makes feminism no longer relevant.

The Wage Gap

Even though the wage gap might sound ridiculous to you, it is genuine and is not a joke nor a myth. It is proven that Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. This wage gap refers to the amount of money women earns within the same job and positions as men. Even though the male and female do the same amount and same type of work, female tend to get paid lower compared to male. This wage gap gets even larger when it is about the women of different colour. Racialized women only earns 88. 2 cents for every dollar a non-racialized women earns. This wage gap is a serious problem because it decreases motivation for the females to work especially for the racialized women due to the amount earned. This is where feminism play a big part in trying to decrease the wage gap to make sure there is equality between the men and women.

Violence against women

In modern day, 1 in 3 women worldwide experience violence and they are usually intimate partner violence or sexual violence. This is a major problem because it violates the human rights of women. Most of these violence are dealt by intimate partner. On one hand, almost 30% of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by their partner in their life. One the other hand, 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner. Violence is very bad because it greatly affects and has an impact on women’s physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health. It is proven that women are more likely to experience violence if they have low education. Feminism plays a big role in this point because violence is a very disgusting thing we have in the modern day and with feminism, we can lower the number of violence against women.

The Rape Culture

The rape culture shows an idea that a society normalizes and pardons sexual violence. It is also a term that was created by the feminists. In the rape culture, the victim is also blamed because of their outfit. The rape culture is a belief that encourages male to sexual aggression and this supports the violence against women. This is where violence is viewed as sexy, in this culture, women are threatened with sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. This causes physical and emotional pain to the women and it can scar women for life. But this is not it, the rape culture also includes stuff like jokes, music, advertising and many more. Rather than viewing this culture as a problem that must be solved, many people just views this culture as normal. For the solution, instead of telling our men to understand what is qualified as sexual consent, we often just tell our women to not wear too revealing clothes, flirt, drink or go out alone at night. But this kind of solution is victim blaming and it will not keep anyone safe from sexual assault. We will still need feminism until women are no longer held responsible for the actions of violent men.

Women’s Health

It is scientifically proven that women are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety and depression compared to men. This is not the fault of anyone but because of biology itself. The pressure women face due to sexism and gender inequalities are very huge contributor to anxiety and depression. Anxiety disorders are real and they are very serious medical conditions, they are as serious as physical disorders like heart diseases and diabetes. Furthermore, poor mental health often leads to physical health problems like the ones stated, heart diseases and diabetes. This anxiety usually worsen when female becomes anxious and self-conscious in every situation which is because of gender inequality. It is undeniable that feminism is still very relevant and it is needed in our society. This is not for the empowerment of women's rights but it is for the overall state of women’s health and well-being. And with feminism, females are able to be less anxious and self-conscious which lessens the chances of suffering from anxiety and depressions.

Feminism has no more battles to fight

Feminism has no more battles left to fight because they have already gained the right to vote. Women have also gained the right to get an abortion. They also may be the right to equal pay and these are important and are worth winning and fighting for. But given that sexual equality is now achieved correctly and it is shown and protected in the law, and there is now nothing for the feminist movement to do. But I feel that feminism has a lot more to achieve. For example, in the UK, women earn 82% of men’s hourly wage on average. After that, one in four women suffers from domestic violence and there was an increase in the amount of rape in the last thirty years.