Is feminism wrong?

I have been challenged a few times recently about feminism. Firstly I was being told that feminism is a thing of the past and then I was told that feminism is wrong. Wrong, because equality has already been enshrined in law. Women have achieved equality and there is, therefore, nothing left to fight for.

I don’t see it that way. In fact, I see quite a few other things, but not that the fight is over.

There has been something of a resurgence of feminism recently, perhaps highlighted by the number of books recently released. I must admit to not being fully up to date on these yet, but there has been:
Living Dolls, Natasha Walter
The Equality Illusion, Kat Banyard
Reclaiming the F Word, Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune

I know that I allowed my career to interrupt my feminist activity and I suspect with a number of others have done the same. After all, a great deal of change has been legislated for. So why is there suddenly a resurgence in feminism?

I have been chatting with various different people from all sorts of different backgrounds about this and have been amazed at the varying views. My views are simply that some things have been changed, but we have not changed the hearts and minds of the world yet. But a few views do differ from mine:

Women are equal to men, but the only people who haven’t realised it are feminists.

I love doing all the female things for my man.

It empowers a woman to be able to take control of her own sexuality by working in the sex industry as a lap dancer or prostitute. Providing they have chosen to do it, why should they not?

Women can easily achieve the same as men, after all they have the same opportunities and laws to protect them.

So why then is there a gender pay gap and a gender opportunity gap? Why are so many women abused? Why are so many women trafficked into prostitution?

Here is a list from Women for Women International where women are disadvantaged:
• Women bear a disproportionate burden of the world's poverty (They represent 70 percent of the world's poor)
• Women’s ability to have a decent life is limited (they perform 66 percent of the world's work and produce 50 percent of the food but they only earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property)
• Investment in women is inadequate (recent data shows that only 3.6% of overseas development assistance was earmarked for gender equality (UNIFEM). And for every dollar of development assistance, two cents goes to girls (Girl Effect).
• During and after conflict, women are particularly vulnerable to violence and exploitation (About 70% of casualties in recent conflicts are women and children (UNIFEM) and the forms of violence they experience include torture, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution and mutilation

(http://www.womenforwomen.org/about-women-for-women/victims-to-survivors.php )
)

There are others not covered in that list; rape, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, employment to name just a few more.

I am only going to look at one are any further for now, after all, it is 40 years since the Equal Pay Act was made law, but the gender pay gap still exists and, in 2010, the Government introduced even more legislation to address this inequality.

The 2009 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings(1) revealed a 25% difference in average full time earnings for male and female employees. A carer benchmarking survey in the Accountancy profession published in 2010(3) revealed that males earn 60% more than their female counterparts.

The pay gap is not, however, the full story. A survey for the Guardian Newspaper in August 2009(2) revealed that, while 90% of companies surveyed had an equality policy, only 3% of executive directors are female. This suggests that opportunities for female employees are less than for their male counterparts. The Bow Group produced a report(7) claiming that 36% of boys stay on at school to take GCE/A levels compared with 44% of girls. This difference questions why there are fewer women making it the highest levels of business.

There are claims that the gender pay gap is not the result of discrimination, but due to other factors such as qualifications, work experience, values and preferences. Shackleton states that “Employer discrimination is not a major factor: the size of the pay gap depends on a range of factors, many of which are probably beyond the influence of government as they depend on the values, preferences and choices of individual men and women.”(4). He goes on to say that “When attitudes and preferences, as well as objective characteristics such as work experience and qualifications, are brought into the picture, however, most of the pay gap can be explained without reference to discrimination”(5). The higher number of women that are part time employees may contribute to the apparent reduced opportunities available to them. In the 2009 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings(1), 89% of male employees worked full time compared to 59% of females.

Other research by the Fawcett Society “shows that whilst legislation has eradicated some of the most blatant forms of discrimination, it has not been entirely successful in changing hearts and minds. The widening pay gap, decline in women leaders, and resurgence in workplace ‘sex-object culture’ are all testament to the fact that equal opportunity policies and discrimination legislation alone are ill-equipped to close the gender equality gap”(6).

Is feminism wrong? I certainly hope I have shown that there is much still to be done and that can only be achieved through feminism.


References:
(1) http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/ashe1109.pdf
(2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/23/women-business-harriet-harman-equality
(3) a Career Benchmarking Study released by the ICAEW and recruiters Robert Half. http://www.financialdirector.co.uk/accountancyage/news/2258629/female-accountants-paid-less
http://www.roberthalf.co.uk/portal/site/rh-uk/menuitem.b0a52206b89cee97e7dfed10c3809fa0/?vgnextoid=8a43852d76d17210VgnVCM1000003c08f90aRCRD&vgnextchannel=0198ad657c762110VgnVCM1000000100007fRCRD
(4) J R Shackleton (p104) Should We Mind the Gap? http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-book442pdf?.pdf
(5) J R Shackleton (p12) http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-book442pdf?.pdf
(6) Just Below the Surface: gender stereotyping, the silent barrier to equality in the modern workplace? http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/documents/Just%20Below%20the%20Surface.pdf
(7) Boys: A School Report by Chris Skidmore http://www.bowgroup.org/harriercollectionitems/BoysASchoolReport%5B1%5D.doc