Am I Worth Less than You?

Sexism is still so rampant... Today I was reading some stats on it here...

In 2006, women over the age of 25 earned 78.7 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Labor Department. That's a decline from 2005's figure of 79.4 cents on the dollar and also represents only about a 5-cent increase since 1991.

Catalyst, a nonprofit research and advisory organization that focuses on professional women, calculates that, at this rate, it will take 73 years for women to achieve parity with men at the board level. 2081, here we come!

The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying.

I despise this. I mean, sure, I wouldn't mind sexism so much if it didn't affect my gender, but it seems to be an inequality assaulting women. I've felt it before; maybe that's why I've chosen to be strong, competitive, to scorn the "girly" things; it could just be that I don't like girly stuff, or maybe I feel like I can't. Why can't women succeed as women? Honestly, why can't people see we are STILL so so SO sexist (not to mention racist). I would like to see how many "important" African American females there are in the world. Once again I ask God why I was born as a female? Is this what he intended? That women just stay in the shadows and support men? Where are the great women writers and singers and artists and scientists? I don't understand what's to like less about a woman? Maybe we can't bench as much as men- but we are certainly not wimps! Plus, how strong does one really need to be for high class jobs?

What makes us worth more than twenty cents less than men? Were we just meant to not work- is that why equality in work is so hard? Or is it the continual pattern of patriarchy? Even the Bible seems sexist at times. Perhaps this shouldn't even matter to me, but, for some reason, it still gets under my skin.