As a woman, I feel it is a unique privilege to be born a woman.  I can appreciate a lot from the male sex, but I know that my journey with my sisters has been a long one.  I also acknowledge that the ways in which female inequality was administered in the US is extremely disparate.   While one group of women may complain that her mother was not permitted to work, I cannot remember a time when my fore-mothers did not.    That alone indicates that there are definitely some areas of variance in the women’s rights movement.

I would also be remiss not to acknowledge the many men who were a part of seeing that equality was created for women throughout America.  As I consider women’s rights and equality, I would like to make some definite distinctions about equality.

Women need to be acknowledged for the plight they’ve faced throughout the world.  Ask any man if he’d like to trade historic places with women from whatever locale he hails and I’m not sure many would agree.  I’m not talking about high heels and hair accessories, I’m talking about the real consequences of income inequality, financial instability and social disenfranchisement for women around the world.  These are not rights based on feelings, but the right to exist with dignity.  I guess that is what my discussion is about—the right to live with dignity.

A lower wage, denies that right.  Insufficient access to adequate health and medical help, denies that right.  Inability to control whether your body is mutilated by age-old practices, denies that right.  Untouched by the new gender politics, the plight of women on the ground–in the trenches, with their babies, reproductive hurdles, social stigmas in their villages, towns and cities around the world is real and in many cases dire. The right to human dignity is what is actually being requested.  Do not ask why a woman asks for equality, rather ask yourself she should be the right  to securely exist in peace with dignity.