We Should All Be Feminists
Designing for Social Innovation
After a month-long hiatus, I am back and ready to tackle the many late nights, mental breakdowns, and ice cream binges that I will undoubtedly experience during the Spring semester. I survived the madness once, I am sure I can do it again.
This past week in Brand Design, we were given our semester-long project — designing a kit for social innovation. My initial thought was designing a kit to help children learn healthy communication; however, after coming across tactless articles and commentary denouncing the recent 2018 Women’s March, I have decided to switch gears. I will be designing a kit based on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay, “We Should All Be Feminists.”
Adichie’s essay was adapted from her TEDx talk, in which she defines the true meaning of feminism and addresses the social injustices that women still face today. In one particular instance, Adichie recalls, “Each time I walk into a Nigerian restaurant with a man, the waiter greets the man and ignores me.” She proceeds to say,
“I know that waiters don’t intend any harm. But it’s one thing to know intellectually and quite another to feel it emotionally. Each time they ignore me, I feel invisible. I feel upset. I want to tell them that I am just as human as the man, that I’m just as worthy of acknowledgment. These are little things, but sometimes it’s the little things that sting the most.”
Adichie’s experience resonated with me because it is true, “sometimes it’s the little things that sting the most.” After I got married, my husband and I received a letter addressed, “Mr. and Mrs. Tim Lundin.” While it seemed insignificant to him and many brush off as “proper etiquette,” (thank you Emily Post…) it secretly destroyed me. When did it become proper etiquette to assume that the man is the head of the household and only “worthy of acknowledgment?” (I’ll give you a hint — it was when women couldn’t vote).
While I realize that I am very fortunate to be a woman living in the United States and that being referred to as Mrs. Tim Lundin is not a grave injustice, especially in comparison to women in Saudi Arabia who cannot “marry, divorce, travel, get a job, or have elective surgery without permission from their male guardians,” women in the United States are still subject to gender inequalities. For those people that say, “we don’t need to fight the system anymore” and dismiss the Women’s March as a temper tantrum of angry feminists, I implore you to dig deeper. Why did millions of women and men participate in the Women’s March? Here are a few statistics:
- Women entrepreneurs receive less than 3% of all venture capital funding (Forbes)
- Women are 51% of the population but makeup 19.8% of Congress (USA Today & Rutgers)
- The U.S. slipped four spots and was ranked #49 out of 144 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report
- Despite being 57% of recent college graduates, fewer women than men are hired at the entry level. At every subsequent step, the representation of women further declines. As a result, one in five C-suite leaders is a woman (McKinsey)
- Women, on average, are promoted at a lower rate than men (McKinsey)
- Women earn less than men in nearly every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data to calculate an earnings ratio (Institute for Women’s Policy Research)
If these economic and workplace statistics aren’t convincing, please keep in mind that:
- 1 in 5 women in the United States is raped during her lifetime
- 85% of domestic abuse victims are women
Gender inequality still exists in the United States. Saying otherwise is ethnocentric, especially when the U.S. ranks 49 out of 144 countries in terms of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment for women.
While I understand a “We Should All Be Feminists” kit is not the end-all solution to gender inequality, it at least provides an outlet for me to channel my frustrations and educate, motivate, and inspire others to explore the true meaning feminism and gender equality.
As I continue to work on this project throughout the semester, I plan to design an “A-Z of Feminism” book and an “On this Day” desk calendar. I realize I chose a lofty endeavor that requires a lot of research, so I welcome any comments or suggestions readers have, specifically on your favorite female role models and what feminism means to you.
As a closing thought, I want to leave you with the dictionary definition of feminism — “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.”
WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS.
