Heads up readers, we’re diving head first into equality. There are so many parts of this topic that I chose to not be too specific for this week.

To start this off, I asked some young adults what they thought women’s rights means. Here are some of the (more serious) responses I received:

“Women deserve to be treated as equals to men, equal pay etc. It would also be nice to not have a luxury tax on tampons.”

“Human rights. Not taking away my birth control against my will?”

“Wanting the same rights for everyone, regardless of where they stand on the gender spectrum.”

“Equality of all sexes in every aspect of societal life, including equal pay and treatment.”

“Rights that women within a society have.”

“Eliminating the idea that men and women aren’t capable of the exact same things.”

“Everyone is like women’s rights, women’s rights. Why can’t we all just be equal?”

“Rights or perks that women specifically posses; it does not mean men have or do not have these rights too, but women definitely do.”

“Women being allowed to do stuff that men are too. I interpret it as legal rights.”

This question was purposefully left vague. I wanted to see how far people would distinguish these rights. What is equality? The first half of the quotations are responses I received from women. The second half I received from men.

The first thing you may notice was that women were more likely to mention their thoughts on the government providing services for women that do not apply to men. The men still advocated for women to be equal, but didn’t expand beyond that.

So I asked them.

They told me the concept of equality is that people are considered equal. Things, like providing birth control and removing taxes on women's sanitary products, seemed to go beyond this meaning. While they personally advocated for women’s rights to healthcare and equality, they mentioned a divide between social rights and rights provided by the government. Let’s expand on that a bit.

I heard two main points being argued from my questions. One side believes that the government cannot decide what is right and wrong when it comes to women’s rights. They make legislation about it, but that is not the ultimate decision on what rights are. This side was eloquently described to me as, “I do not put my faith in the government to change women’s rights; I put my faith in our society to change women’s rights.”

The other said that there are two sides that dictate rights, what women are permitted to do legally and how they are treated. Essentially that even if something is deemed to be socially acceptable, it still will not be legal.

So how will the government determine women’s rights if there is such a disagreement as to what women’s rights are and who decides these rights? We are currently under a conservative administration.

There has already been a discussion of revoking Title IX, not requiring businesses to provide birth control for women, and the topic of abortion will likely come up at some point. The government does not view equality as providing services for women that do not apply to everyone.

However, there is no law that dictates women are equal to men. We currently have the 19^th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. There is the equal pay act that requires equal pay of men and women at the same institution. We also have Title IX. Title IX requires equal treatment of women in education.

Why is there no law that says men and women are equal? To me, it seems like this would make it much easier to defend Title IX and to push for additional legislation beyond the broad meaning of equality. I believe that women have additional expenses simply because they are women, that should be covered by the government, but that this goes beyond the general meaning of equality.

To conclude, women’s rights does not have a simple meaning. Both society and the government have an impact on equality. It seems evident that reform needs to happen, the question then becomes how. For this week, I’m going to leave some additional readings and some questions for you to answer.

How do you define women’s rights?

Should the government provide services to women that do not apply to men?

Should there be a law that says women are equal to men?

Can decisions about equality be made completely by the government?

Additional Readings

“Why Is the US 'Tampon Tax' so Hated?” BBC News, 14 Sept. 2016, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37365286.

Tatum, Sophie. “DeVos Announces Review of Obama-Era Sexual Assault Guidance.” CNN, 7 Sept. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/09/07/politics/betsy-devos-education-department-title-ix/index.html.

Franks, Trent. “Rep. Trent Franks: Late Abortion Bill Deserves a Straight up or down Vote in the Senate.” Fox News, 4 Oct. 2017, www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/04/rep-trent-franks-late-abortion-bill-deserves-straight-up-or-down-vote-in-senate.html.

Ellen, Barbara. “Women's Rights Are on the Retreat Again. Why?” The Guardian, 7 Oct. 2017, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/07/womens-rights-are-on-the-retreat-yet-again-why.