Topic of The Week: Hairy Legged Man Haters

We believe whatever 'our husbands believe' when it comes to politics, we care far too much about health and education (as opposed to the economy)  and after all our strives for equality, we still don't get the same treatment as men. Gee, will we ever catch a break? Throughout the years women have fought tooth and nail to be equal to our male counterparts but after all this time, have we really succeeded?

Until the late 1840s women had to put up with a lot of discrimination regarding our rights. Women were made to stay at home, clean, cook and take care of their children while men went out and did all the heavy manual labor, to then be waited on by their doting wives when they arrived home. However by 1848 we had had enough of this stereotypical hoo-ha and fellow feminists Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Molt began the fight for women's rights, resulting in women's suffrage being achieved in the US (and many more countries like here in Britain) by the 19th century.

 Of course, many men were not too happy about their inferior wives having a voice of their own and even today will only know the term 'feminist' as a synonym for 'hairy legged man hater' which begs is to question if equal rights have really been achieved after all.

A point often raised in the argument that women and men are in fact, still not equal is the difference in wages. Recent studies have shown that female graduates earn thousands of pounds less than their male counterparts, despite having the same qualifications. The researchers for the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) analysed this in more detail, comparing the difference in male and female graduates' earnings. Jane Artess, a HECSU researcher, reported that pay distribution was 'strikingly uneven' and the study showed that the pay rate for female graduates ranged between £15,000 and £23,000 whereas men's pay rates were mainly £24,000+. Which helps prove that there is still not complete equality between the genders, despite the laws that have been passed.

Not only do women have to accept lower wages than men but they also manage to juggle looking after a family and their home life as well as a full time job. Of course, this obviously isn't the case for every single full time working female but as stereotypical as it is, women do seem to do most of the juggling between their home and professional life, as opposed to their male counterparts. From going from being in a traditional family with two parents to then living with just a single mother I have witnessed this. I can understand that there are also single fathers out there but when you have seen and admired a mother juggling everything from a full time job, teenage daughters and omnipresent bills, you really can't question that working mothers have it tougher.

Despite the fact that women and men are still not entirely equal, I do think that women are so much better off now than they were in the 1840s, we may still have lower wages but at least women now actually have the right to work!! The stereotypical expectations may not still be so high and the constant 'women belong in the kitchen' stereotype is always going to be there, but personally, I think that's a good enough compromise. I can put up with the occasional stereotypical jab at womanhood every now and again as long as I get to keep my right to vote and independently earn my own money when I'm old enough. And I'm sure a woman from the 1840s would trade their life for mine any day.

Don't let the sexists get you down,

Cat. X