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January 11th, the google doodle of the day was to celebrate Alice Paul’s 131’s birthday. Yay for women-kind. However, it got me thinking about women in general. I don’t consider myself a hard core feminist, in fact, before the word was tossed around I didn’t think much about the word itself at all. I work in the media sphere. By now, we’ve all heard how women don’t get paid the same as their male peers thanks to Jennifer Lawrence’s piece written for Lena Dunham’s newsletter.
This got me thinking — as women, how do we let this happen? According to the 2010 US Census, there are 157.0 million females in the United States. Then why are there so few women in positions of power? Take this fascinating article from variety.com on “Digital Entertainment Impact Report: 30 Execs to Watch.” There are 10 women out of the 30 profiled as people to watch in the digital world. That is 33%. I told this to a friend of mine and you know what she said? “Well, it’s not quite half, that’s not too bad.” Not kidding, words straight from our IM’d conversation. When I told her I thought it was bad, she replied “It could be a hell of a lot better, that’s for sure.”
What would Alice Paul think if she could hear that? The woman fought long and hard to secure the right to vote for women, and we’re like, eh things could be better. She was so dedicated to making things better for women she worked for the Equal Rights Amendment from 1923 until it passed in Congress in 1972. 49 years. Let me repeat that and let it sink in… 49 years of constant work. I don’t think I could put that time or effort into anything for that long. It feels like we’re letting old Alice down. I wonder what she would be working for if she was alive now… Methinks she might have joined the fight for equal pay for women.
To end this rant I seem to be on, I would like to challenge myself to become a sort of crusader for women’s rights like Alice was, but I’m not exactly sure how. If anyone has ideas, feel free to shout them out! I’m all ears.
