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by Miss Anne Gerist

Over the last hundred years, feminists have managed to make significant progress on behalf of all women, even those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome who continue to support patriarchal SCUM who hold us down. We have gotten the right to vote in countries like Britain, Canada, and America, are allowed to hold political office, have authority over our own bodies, and have helped pass legislation that ensures equal pay for equal work (only nine people voted against that). However, there are a number of systemic cultural issues that continue to prevent women from securing true equality. Whether it be in the judicial system, dealing with insurance companies, how we are presented in the media, or how we are treated in public places such as restaurants, patriarchal society continues to infantilize and condescend to women, failing to recognize that we are, outside of the weight room, equal to men in every manner.

Insurance companies remain one of the most sexist and chauvinistic institutions on the planet. Government sponsored health insurance programs charge men the same amount for coverage as they charge women, even though women’s health care costs are higher! If I’m going to put a larger burden onto the system, I want to pay my share. I do not need to be coddled and patronized. Aside from the fact that women carry babies, a health cost completely independent of and irrelevant to men, women live longer, meaning we place a larger burden on the health care system due to our longevity. Coupled with this, men are actually charged more for car insurance. Apparently, insurance companies believe that women are less aggressive and more law-abiding than men. Well fuck that noise! I can be just as aggressive as any man, and I can break laws just as frequently. I don’t need insurance companies rewarding me for my gender based on an inaccurate generalization! It is condescending, and frankly inaccurate. Studies have actually indicated that women are more aggressive than men, both physically and verbally. Yet this truth goes unrecognized, as the powers that be (likely men) in insurance adhere to some antiquated idea of woman as a delicate, gentle flower. The fact that women don’t pay the same amount for car insurance is frankly appalling. How can women and men be equal is women don’t even pay the same for car insurance?

Misconceptions about aggression are also problematic and lead to more coddling by the media. Abusive patriarchal bastards like Ray Rice, War Machine and Greg Hardy have all recently been charged with domestic abuse, and the media has justifiably blitzed these worthless hunks of cowardly shit for their transgressions. Hope Solo, a female soccer player, has remained out of the public spotlight and continues to play soccer with team USA while her male counterparts face suspensions, even though she is also facing domestic abuse charges for beating her sister and nephew. Talk about a double standard! And when former Rookie of the Year Chamique Holdsclaw fired a shot at her significant other, few media outlets even picked up the story. There are some who even try to downplay the fact that women perpetrate domestic abuse and frame this as a strictly male-on-female problem, when studies demonstrate that women are more physically abusive, and stats show that over 800 000 men are abused each year in America. People also forget that domestic abuse isn’t just committed against partners, but also against children, and one study suggests that women commit as much as 73% of child abuse. Instances of infanticide are overwhelmingly committed by women, meaning that while women may be more likely to be murdered by their partner than the other way around (though men are three times more likely to be murdered than women), a child is far more likely to be murdered by the mother rather than the father. There are hosts of stories about mothers who have killed their children, and the media needs to start recognizing that women are just as capable of being violent murderers as are men.

This kind of condescending coddling extends beyond the media and into the court rooms. The case of prototypical feminist anti-hero Efemia A. Neumaier offers insight into this double standard. Though Neumaier planned a violent robbery that led to the rape of a pregnant women, she was only sentenced to five years in prison, while two of her male counterparts received sentences that were five times longer. Even the driver of the getaway car was in for almost three times longer than Neumaier, though he did not break in or participate in the violent act. Why, then, did Neumaier only receive five years? The judge clearly failed to recognize that Neumaier’s masterminded the plot, suggesting that her contribution was somehow inferior to that of her male counterparts. Assistant law professor Sonja Starr recently conducted a study that suggests this is a pattern of behaviour in the justice system as men received sentences that are up to 60% longer than sentences handed down to women for the same crimes. Clearly judges don’t feel that women are capable of understanding right from wrong as thoroughly as men. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that women should receive sentences as long as those handed down to men of colour, or be treated like Muslims, but they should at least receive sentences as long as white men since women are just as culpable as men who commit the same crime.

This sort of inequality extends to the workplace. Some feminists have suggested that despite the equal-pay-for-equal-work legislation, there is still a pay gap between men and women, even in developed countries where women are actually allowed to work and get paid. I mean, Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, initially only received half of what her predecessor had been paid until her stock options kicked in and made her the top paid CEO among the Big Three. It is terribly upsetting to see a woman in the top 1%, like Barra, only make a disgusting amount of money in the first few months of her employment instead of the outright, vomit-inducing amount of money she would be bequeathed at the next stock-holders meeting. It makes one want to write an article about the temporary inequality amongst the world’s richest and most privileged people instead of bringing attention to the fact that countries like Saudi Arabia don’t even have equal-pay-for-equal-work legislation. While some argue that men make more than women, they often fail to mention that men are not only more likely to be injured at work, but are 13 times more likely to die at work! If workplaces can’t ensure that these accidents happen to women as often as men, then they have two options: either offer hazard pay to men, or make sure that at the end of each year, an equal number of men and women are killed or injured at work.

Even when out socializing, it is impossible to escape the inequality that exists in our patriarchal society. For example, I regularly have strange men hold the door open for me, as if I were incapable of opening a door myself. Likewise, on the rare occasion when I find a man who does not cause me to fear for my life and agree to meet him at a public place and share a meal, every single time the waitress (or waiter) places the bill in front of the man who is accompanying me, as if I am incapable of financially supporting myself because I am a frail and incompetent woman. And what is more, the man I am with often willingly accepts the bill, paying for the entire meal, as if he agrees with the waitress’s (or waiter’s) assessment of my economic standing (though I don’t raise the issue; I merely do not go out with the man again). I can open my own fucking doors, and I can pay for my own vegan quesadillas. Just because I am a woman doesn’t mean I lack the muscle mass to open a door or the funds to pay for a meal. These subtly chauvinistic, socially ingrained practices are the most dangerous because people don’t even realize their implications. Until men stop holding the door for women, and waitresses (and waiters) stop placing the bill in front of the man, it will not be possible for us to know what true equality means.

It is beyond frustrating that a woman cannot go through her daily routine without having to be coddled by every supporter of the patriarchy they happen to pass. Women who abuse and kill children fail to get the same kind of recognition for their actions as men, while women who commit crimes are given sentences more befitting a child offender, suggesting that the criminal justice system infantilizes women. Insurance companies practically give women a discount on healthcare, while overtly charging women less for car insurance because they fail to recognize how aggressive women can be. Even accidents have a patriarchal bias as they choose to victimize men more than women, as if women could handle a 3000-ton dye crushing her hand as well as a man. And when I go out in public, I have people offering to hold the door open for me and buy me food as if I were some sort of invalid. Women can be murderers, and abusers, and criminal masterminds. They can be aggressive, and commit speeding infractions, and they can open doors and pay for their own meals. The sooner the patriarchy realizes that, the sooner we women can experience true equality!