The Woman’s Rights Movement lasted from 1848 to 1920, it lasted approximately 72 years! In the end of this movement women were    finally given their right to vote. We were finally equal…or were we? Inequality for gender still exists; a great example is job pay. Research proves that a woman gets paid less than a man in the same occupation. A woman’s salary is 77% of a man’s for the same job, a man’s Median wage is approximately $47, 715 and a woman’s median wage is $36,931. At the end of an average 40-year career a woman has lost about $431,360 of her salary because of gender. That is 33% of lost which could have provided 2,751 gallons of gas, 2.9 years of health insurance, 7 months of mortgage, 7 months of bills and 1.8 years of food. 2.5% of a mother’s pay check is deducted for having a child at home.

It is the year 2015, and we still continue to have inequality for multiple reasons…race, religions and my main concern gender.  I am female, so obviously I am going to have a strong feeling about this situation. I am not yet in the work force, but as a teenager and knowing how hard it is to be a girl in the society world I feel like I should help address this problem. This is for all the future, present and past strong and powerful girls.

Why I consider myself a feminist… I believe women deserve to have the rights to be equal, to be themselves and to have a voice. Being a feminist doesn’t mean you are against men, or that you are anti-feminine… in fact I am extremely girly and consider myself a “Girly Girl”. Feminism means to believe in women, even men could spread feminism. Men supporting feminism doesn’t mean they are feminine men; it just means they support the fact that a woman and a man should have the same rights.

I have a couple of inspirations, people who have spoken the truth about women’s rights. One of my true inspirations is Emma Watson; she is at the age of 24 and is a voice for women. (You may know her as Hermione Granger from the oh so famous Harry Potter series.) Emma is an official UN Women Goodwill Ambassador (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women), which is a board for supporting women rights and gender equality. Emma Watson, much like myself, started believing in equality at a young age. “When I was 8, I was called bossy because I wanted to direct a play we would put on for our parents. When at 14, I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media. At 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of sports teams because they didn’t want to appear masculine. At 18, my male friends were unable to express their feelings. I decided that I was a feminist.” This is a section out of Emma’s powerful UN Speech in September of 2014 for launching a program called He for She.

Another problem created by society and the lack of women rights is body image, girls as young as 5 years old are contemplating with this, its peak is usually between the ages of 12 and 18. Girls look at magazines and realize they aren’t as skinny, “beautiful”, or society pretty as the girls on the pages. When most of the models are “fixed” with Photoshop, to make them look skinnier, take away skin flaws, change colors and perfect them. The unnatural and unhealthy look of Barbie dolls, which we let little girls play with and continuously call the doll perfect and beautiful. Crazy diets and extreme workouts that are almost impossible to follow. Some of these things we expose girls too at a young age causes eating disorders, a wrong idea of self-image and causes bullying. I won’t lie, I am affected by society as well… look at me, I am not society perfect, but I am me. I constantly struggle with something I call Atelophobia, the fear of not being good enough. I am learning that the real you is good enough, and I hope one day everyone may respect this.

Women, just like men, can be strong. Women, just like men, can be powerful. Women, just like men, deserve to be given respect. Women, just like men, are human. Why are we letting the world control us? We deserve so much but are given so little.