Today’s Guest Column
Feminism is a movement promoting equal rights and opportunities for women. Based on that definition, I’d consider myself a feminist. In fact, I think most people would probably consider themselves feminists. If this were the true definition of feminism, why aren’t there more feminists around?
Christina Hoff Sommers recently gave a lecture on the campus about her book, The War Against Boys. Obviously, the title of the book was designed to be controversial and shake some people’s points of view. She stated that for every two men who graduate with a bachelor’s degree, there are three women who graduate with one. She also cited statistics showing that women are performing better than men in school. Sommers even went so far as to say that some misguided forms of feminism are hurting men.
Many feminists in attendance did not agree with the point she was trying to make and argued that men are doing better than women. I heard many feminists say things such as, “Men are making more money than women” and, “There are more men than women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors and careers,” which are common arguments among feminists.
At that point, I realized feminism has strayed away from its definition.
The rights and opportunities are already there, and feminists have accomplished their goal of equal rights in education. The problem is they want to see results.
Until women are making the same amount of money as men and are just as prevalent in STEM fields, feminists will feel as though their job is not done (at least in the realm of education). The fallacy with that style of thinking is that feminists are not taking into account that men and women have the right to choose whichever career path they want. Sommers brought up the fact that more women choose to major in the social sciences, whereas more men choose to major in STEM fields.
Feminists claim that women are doing so because of culture and tradition. But women are now doing plenty of things that at recent points in time were seen as culturally unacceptable. For example, roughly 75 years ago, this university’s student body consisted mainly of men; women did not traditionally attend college. Additionally, women majoring in STEM fields are often selected for jobs over men with similar resumes.
Overall, it seems the idea of feminism in modern society is paradoxical and hypocritical in nature by trying to push women into fields of work and study that are more dominated by men, even though the majority of women don’t want to do so. If feminists were trying to promote equal rights and opportunities for women, they would be OK with women choosing whatever field they’d like to go into, even if this resulted in lower wages.
Trying to get women to enter the fields of work that men are predominantly interested in is both oppressive and marginalizing, which is exactly what feminists were trying to fight in the first place.
Pascal Bloch is a junior computer science major. He can be reached at pbloch@terpmail.umd.edu.
