Walking into Mr. Blankenship’s room, I look on the board to see we are going to be discussing International Women’s day and all the factors that contribute to it. When I sat down I hear another student in the room say “…not only is it National Women’s Day, but it is also National Joke Day.”  Some students started to laugh; others, myself included, heard this comment and started to question the rationality of this statement.

Throughout history, women have been oppressed and put down for something as simple as sex. Today women have gained (almost) equal rights to men and have (almost) gained equality in the workplace and in the home. But on National Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the women around the world, my Twitter feed has been filled with men asking, “When is National Men’s Day.” After being oppressed for hundreds, if not thousands of years, is it that hard to have one day to commemorate the successes of women? Don’t get me wrong, not all men are like this. In fact, I have seen many show their respect towards women, but until everyone is able to honor and admire women it is all the more reason to have International Women’s Day.

As the class period went on, we discussed why the wage gap was so distinct and why men were getting paid more for the same jobs. As we got deeper into the debate, one student said “A woman has to make a choice, a job or a family and if she chooses to have a kid then she obviously chooses not to have a career.” As a woman, I did not decide to be the sole gender biologically capable of pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean when I am older that I don’t want one. Most American women do not even receive pay during their maternity leave. Their jobs are protected through the Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, but they only have 12 weeks of protection after birth or adoption. Yet having a child is one of the greatest contributing factors to women to leaving the workforce and getting paid equal wages. They are having children and then take a couple years off, which in turn makes it hard to return.

According to an article written by The Economist, women in America only make about 88 cents for every dollar men earn for doing 100 percent of the same work. Near the end of the class period, we started to talk about gender roles and if they are still prevalent. After discussion with the people around us, a few brave students decided to share with the class. One student in particular said she believed that gender roles still existed. Like how women are expected to clean the house and take care of the children. In response, another student replied in a low, quiet voice so Mr. Blankenship could not hear, “Well women should be cleaning the house if they are just taking care of kids and if men are working all day.” Why should this burden of house care fall solely on the shoulders of women? No. Why is this automatically just expected of women to do these tasks considered to be within the realm of their ‘gender roles?’

Instead of continuing to talk about these wage gap problems, why don’t we give women equal pay for equal work? It is as simple as that. The gender pay gap could also be reduced if we were to teach girls, at a young age, to understand what they deserve and to know that women are equal to men. We could be teaching boys when they are young that women are not inferior to them, but instead to respect them.

As the period came to an end, I walked out of Mr. Blankenship’s room with a new idea on how women are viewed in our society. People have been constantly questioning why women are marching around the country and why there is even an International Women’s Day. Well this is why, because, in today’s society, for equal work a woman’s pay is still based on her sex.  

#InternationalWomensEveryday