It starts with awareness.

Gender equality is the “equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys”.  Now, what is the difference between the terms gender equality and feminism? None. There are no differences; they have the same meaning, yet feminism seems to be the less popular term amongst people. Is it because feminism contains “fem” in it? Is it because gender equality sounds more neutral? It is because some people claim that feminists are “man-haters”?

          Some people are knowingly feminists, some are inadvertently feminists, and some claim to not be feminists. It is the job of those who are aware of gender inequality to diffuse the word of feminism and the need for it. It is a tough task, but in order for gender equality to spread, people need to acknowledge this as an actual problem and learn to understand why this is an issue and the importance of solving it.

There are numerous aspects to gender equality, or rather the inequalities. One of those is gender-based violence which is a severe and serious problem worldwide. One in four women are “sexually or physically abused during pregnancy” and almost “40% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner”.  It doesn’t stop there, however. Around 120 million girls across the world “have experienced forced intercourse” and in modern slavery, women make up “55% of the 20.9 million forced into labor” while “98% of the 4.5 million are forced into sexual exploitation”. 

  Recently in September of 2014, a 16-year-old girl named Safia from Somalia was taken hostage by a man she tried to help as “he held her captive for two weeks, raping her repeatedly”.  Luckily, there are programs like the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which aided Safia in being rescued. But, this hasn’t always the case; some people are not lucky enough. And to think this is only a piece of what’s happening in the world today.

The issue is not only the violence against women, but other factors like unequal pay. According to a study conducted in 2013, “women were paid 78% of what men were paid”.  The pay gap also tends to increase with race and age as the pay gap increases with colored woman and elderly women. In order for this problem to be solved, not only do we need to be aware of it, but authorities need to implement rules. The Paycheck Fairness Act has not be changed since 1963 and with updates to solve unequal pay, this may be a step towards equal pay.
        

The amount of inequalities women face is too much to put all in once. In general, there is social and political discrimination over women. Not to mention feedback about feminism on social media such as the “meninist” twitter account that focuses on favoritism towards men by constantly bashing women with vulgar content that is thought to be “funny”. It’s small stuff like that that can blow up and reach heights that shouldn’t be reached. In order for this to come to a stop, people need to be aware of the stupidity of these people and the need for gender equality.

There is not a single country that fully supports gender equality. It is difficult to measure this and to reach out to those who do not support feminism, but this should only make us want to strive forward.

  It starts with a voice.

One voice can turn into a couple voices, which can turn into thousands of voices and then into millions of voices. A voice needs to be heard that women deserve equality economically, politically, and socially because there is no factual reason as to why they shouldn’t.

         So, who do we reach out to? How do we reach out? HeForShe is a campaign run by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson. This campaign promotes gender equality starting with the main help of men. Watson stated in a speech that “men [are] made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success” and feel the need to act tough.  This is not about a superior gender or characteristic or defining people, this is about equality.

          So, it starts with awareness.

          It is a lot to take on especially with the negativity feminism attracts. We are lucky enough to have such powerful advocators and organizations dedicated to solving gender inequality, but that is not enough. There need to be more organizations and more strong voices that can help turn a singular voice into many. The need for gender equality is tangible especially with the technology we have today, so us feminists should be taking advantage of that. The goal is to make women feel comfortable being women, the goal is to make men comfortable so as to accept gender equality, the goal is freedom.