I consider gender issues to be the most serious, as they permeate all other issues - politics, race, religion, etc. I'll say up front that I haven't been properly schooled on the feminist cause and all its nuances, but these are my loose understandings: while some ancient cultures prospered under matriarchal rule, it took the good old U.S. of A 154 years to even allow women to vote. Rights like holding property, owning a business and other similar things - I have no clue as to the names of the activists who made these rights possible for me, but neither do I take them for granted. I've read in several places that women are still under-represented in the top tiers of corporations and other businesses (though we outnumber males in schools and universities) and still receive less pay than a man doing the same work.

Despite what may be occurring on a national scale, it's my uneducated supposition that my life is a success story for the cause of gender equality as it relates to the workplace. So what's my story? Simply this: as far as I can tell, being a woman has not once hurt or helped me in any of my vocational pursuits. Granted, I am only two years into pursuing my career and just now finishing the first step, which is getting a Master's degree. Furthermore, I happen to be in the publishing industry; if my classes are any indication, and my professors aren't exaggerating, the publishing scene is almost completely female. However, in applying for my program, the various internships I've had or the full time positions I filled, I've never had the slightest indication that my gender had any effect on the outcome.

And isn't that what we're going for? To me, the measure of whether two things are truly equal is the level to which they are easily interchangeable. The fact that my gender has never been an issue leads me to assume that for all the people I interacted with, it was not a factor at all. No one questioned my qualifications or overvalued them because I am a female. In each position I had the opportunity to work closely with the individual who interviewed me, and each time came to see that the person was impartial to gender. It is clear that it was my skills that were the deciding factor - not my sex, my ethnicity or even my personality. If there had been a male applying who simply had more knowledge, or stronger ability for the tasks at hand, I would have been out of luck. Since I’m the one that got those jobs, I guess everyone else that applied for it was out of luck, whether male or female.

As I face graduation and the toughest job market since the Great Depression, I truly hope that I am blessed enough never to be on the receiving end of partiality, as I’m not sure which would irk me more – not being hired because I’m a female or being hired simply because of the fact. I’ll continue to do my best as a professional and work toward keeping any one aspect of my character from defining me. I anticipate that any of my future colleagues will follow suit, or that by the time I do have this problem on my hands, I will be ready to react in the most constructive way possible.

Related Links

Why don't feminists think porn empowers women?, Salon.com

Advice for Girls, The Miami Herald

Did Feminism Make Us Happy? The Seattle Times