2021 Equity Challenge Day 17: Women’s Equity

The fight for women’s rights has been a long and enduring battle that spans generations. The inequities that women face exist across multiple sectors like education, politics, the workplace and healthcare. Across society, women are discriminated against based on gender and gender expression while being disproportionately affected by issues like domestic and sexual violence, the wage gap and living in poverty.

Gender inequity persists in large part due to sexism and patriarchy. Sexism is prejudice and/or discrimination based on gender. Sexism primarily affects women, transgender women and girls. It is important to understand that sexism operates on the individual, institutional and cultural levels. Some examples of sexism include street harassment to feminine expressing people, the undervalued and underrecognized caretaker work that is primarily held by women, and masculine voices interrupting and often taking up more time and space in a room then feminine voices. Instances of sexism work to maintain patriarchy, a system where men uphold social power. 

Reflecting on Day 15’s learnings about Intersectionality, it is important that we approach today’s challenge with the recognition that women of different races, ability statuses, sexual orientations, etc. will have different experiences and issues that relate to women’s inequity. For example, according to the ACLU, women earn 78 cents to each dollar a man earns. This gap is widened when race is factored in. Black women earn only 64 cents and Latinas only 54 cents for each dollar earned by white men. Today’s challenge explores the devastating effects of sexism.