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Building A World That Works for All

Have you ever heard the expression "a woman's task is never done"? It's true: women do three times as much unpaid care and household work as men. That is time and energy taken away from women who could be furthering their professions, earning more money, or enjoying leisure activities. Women are subjected to a variety of sexist and disrespectful behaviors in public and private settings daily, ranging from catcalling to mansplaining to inappropriate jokes.

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Exploring the most recent data on gender equality from around the world, and if we read any news or engage in any social media activity, the following becomes abundantly clear – there is tremendous dissent and vehement disagreement today among people all over the world about the status and importance of equality.


Simply said, feminism is the belief that both genders should have equal rights and opportunities. It is about recognizing various women's experiences, identities, expertise, and talents, as well as seeking to enable all women to fully realize their rights. It is about leveling the gender playing field and ensuring that different women and girls have the same possibilities in life as boys and men.


It is essential to recognize that “same” does not imply “equal.” The problem here is one of the equal rights and equal access to opportunity. Men and women do not have to be physically “equal” to enjoy the right to equality. I'd like to see that argument (that women and men aren't the "same," thus they can't be equal) go away for good. It's, in my opinion, misguided.


Here's an example: If there were two young boys in a classroom, and one was physically weaker and smaller than the other, would we think it's right to deny the weaker, smaller boy access to the teacher, learning, computers, books, and class resources, and other children in the class because he didn't have the same physical strength as the other boy?


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At its root, feminism is about equality between men and women, not “sameness.” Many individuals argue that because women are not the "same" as males, equality cannot exist. In other words, because their bodies are different (many argue "weaker" and smaller) because men and women have distinct physical capacities, equality is not feasible.


“Feminism is not about men vs women or women vs men; we're all in this together. That is what gender equality means to me. Without a feminist agenda, there can be no human rights agenda, no better world, and no Sustainable Development Goals. Without it, all shall just break apart.


It is not a matter of constructing a sliding scale of who is worse off — it is a matter of studying and comprehending how inequality affects both men and women and recognizing that we are all in this together. True equality does not leave anybody behind.


~ Prassiddhi Sachdeva



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