On March 8, people around the world celebrated International Women’s Day. In lieu of the celebrations, the state of the female community and feminism continue to thrive in countries around the world.
The current state of female strength and motivation proves to be at an all-time high. Women now focus on the issues that threaten their individuality, economic status and self-esteem.
Ever since the beginning of humankind, women have been ignored and treated unfairly. They have worked as mothers, wives, mechanics, lawyers and doctors without having the recognition and respect due.
The pay wage has been compromised for the past 40 years and we have been denied equal pay to our male counterparts. To this day, women only earn 79 cents to every dollar a man earns for equal work.
While career women continue to suffer, teenage girls go to school every day and question their perfection. They critique every inch of their body until they have no self-esteem or confidence left to focus in class while receiving punishment for wearing an off-the-shoulder top and being told that they are "distracting the class."
Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, recently did a TED talk that said that girls are not taught to be brave like the boys. They are taught to be perfect and to accept their comfort zone, to avoid any ounce of failure.
Saujani says that boys are taught at a young age to jump off of the monkey bars head first, while the girls are taught to not dirty their clothes, to color and to be a “princess.”
While these negative connotations and actions of society continue, the amount of love and support within the female community has sparked another feminist movement.
With new Barbies coming into the light and plus-size models landing the cover of Sports Illustrated, women are now coming to a point in time when they can be proud of their imperfections. The representation of real women in media is new but is also a stepping-stone into the world of acceptance and fair representation.
Females are now in the running to be the next president of the United States. The amount of courage and persistence of the female population has come to a point that our great grandparents would have never imagined.
Women have created companies and organizations that fight gender discrimination and sexual harassment while empowering the female population. They have companies that track children, that prevent rape, and that create complicated computer systems.
Females across the globe are coming together to fight the denial of rights and to create a new sense of unity where it hasn’t been before. Women have expanded their horizons and they have created a guiding image for this next generation of women.
Celebrities post on social media constantly, supporting their fellow females or their female counterparts, hashtagging #InternationalWomensDay and “shaming” the trolls who lessen the worth of women.
Social media plays a huge role in the negative portrayal of women, but it has also fought the negative reputation that has manifested in the past years.
The strength of womankind does not lie in the hands of celebrities. It lies within the mothers who work two jobs to support their children. It’s within the young girl who stands up to the boy who bullies her. It is within the teenage girl who is shamed for being anything other than perfect.
Women are not the “weaker sex;” we are the strong, resilient sex.
