“A family member of mine was walking alone one time in broad daylight to her friend’s house to get her bike,” Senior Hailey DeWolf said, her eyes looking down as she told the story. There was a sad smile on her lips, almost as though that smile would offer her comfort as she spoke. “On the way there, a man in a car followed her, stopped the car and went to grab her. She ran to a house and called the cops. When the cops arrived, the first thing they asked her was, “Well, why are you wearing those shorts?”’ Hailey’s face was masked in a look of disgust. She clenched her jaw in anger. Shaking her head, she opened her mouth and continued. “They were track shorts, because she had come from track practice.” Hailey looked down at her hands, rubbing her fingers together. “If the same thing happened to a man who was wearing shorts, I don’t believe the blame would be put on him as opposed to the attacker.”

  Feminism.

  That is the word, ladies and gentlemen, that sparks a few emotions within our hearts as we hear or read about it. Some people despise the word feminism and believe there is no point for it. These individuals sometimes believe that feminism is the movement for women to rule over men; therefore, they believe we don’t need it.

  And then there are the people who hear the word feminism and feel their hearts flutter with hope for the chance of equality. These individuals believe that feminism can be that opportunity where no one is afraid and there is finally justice. They want to live in the world that will one day be the future. A world filled with equality.

  If you haven’t guessed already, I am the individual who feels hope fluttering within my heart at the mention of feminism. I am an individual who strongly believes in the equality of everyone whether you are male or female, white or black, short or tall. Everyone deserves to have equal rights and that is exactly what feminism is. It is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” No one is above anyone, because we are all human beings made in the exact same image, with eyes, and a nose, and a mouth, and ten fingers. We are all human. However, ever since the feminist movement has taken a toll, it has received negative connotations, in which people believe that the reasoning for feminism is for women to reign over men. Some people even say that feminism isn’t even a real thing to begin with, that it is a movement created with the depths of a few crazy women’s brains.

  But allow me to tell you this: Feminism is real and it is existing at every single moment that a clock ticks. It exists, because it needs to exist so that every individual upon this earth receives the equal rights that should have been given to us from the very beginning of time.

  Some people are ignorant and choose to ignore the fact of the inequity that lives. But if those people opened their eyes and chose not to ignore, they would see that there is inequality everywhere.  There is inequality between the sexes, races, and even within social classes. Each of these intertwine together and create this world filled with destruction and chaos. People experience this inequality everyday, even those who you go to school with.

  Junior Bianca Stavrakakes explained that she experienced inequality multiple times because of her sex. “There were times where I would want to play with the boys to play sports,” she said, “but they wouldn’t let me because I was a girl.” Do you remember that popular insult that used to be thrown around like it were rocks, where you were compared to a girl, because apparently, being a girl was the worst thing ever? You run like a girl. You hit like a girl. You cry like a girl. This negativity towards the female sex not only affects women, but men. Boys are brought up to not be “like a girl” and girls are taught to accept to be “like a girl” and believe that they are weak. We think this way because of these stereotypes that have existed for hundreds of years, dictating how people are supposed to act.

  By now, each of us should understand that stereotypes are a load of garbage. Most of the time they are offensive, and other times they are just plain wrong. Stereotypes are part of the hard foundation that leads up to inequality. Because of stereotypes people believe that they already “know” a person. But that is ridiculous. You can’t know someone because of a generalized idea of who that person may be. However, that generalization absorbed into the media and they accepted it, making those stereotypes come true in movies, TV shows, books, magazines, and etc.

  In older movies, you noticed that the women are always emotional, the damsels in distress, beautiful, extremely flirtatious, and elegant. While men are always the strong individuals who are hardworking, the heroes, invincible, tall and muscular. Nowadays, it seems that the media focuses on the more “sexual” stereotypes of these both sexes.

  I was watching TV one day and a commercial popped on about the newest and coolest car. In the middle of the commercial, a woman wearing nothing but a bikini, strutted around, sitting on top of the car. That woman’s body was used for the purpose of advertisement in a way where she was no longer seen as an actual human, but a sexual object. It was like she was a poster that read, “Buy this car and get me for half off.” Why was her body needed to promote a car, when she had nothing to do with the car? Commercials even do that with men, showing a extremely muscular and fit guy with a six-pack. What’s the point? What are you trying to accomplish? We are people. Not a billboard that advertises your brand new car.

  Because of the oversexualizing of men and women, their bodies become known as sex symbols, or at least, the rapist and abusers think it does. Some people believe that when people dress in a certain way, that they are the reasoning for the bad things that happen to them; such as being raped, or abused, or even kidnapped. The media shows off the body as being such a sexual thing, that people begin to think of it in that way. This represents how much we have lost respect for others. If we believe that a female or male dresses a certain way and they are “begging” to be raped or abused or kidnapped, then we are horrible human beings. Hailey’s relative shows that she was blamed for the attempt kidnapped that was placed on her when the police asked her why she was wearing those shorts. They were shorts, shorts that a person would wear to practice, but to the police it was indecent or the cause for her attempt kidnap. Because of this sad idea of the body and of people, some individuals develop the idea that they are better than others and that they can overpower them.

  In U.S. college campuses, 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted and women around the world between the ages 15 to 44 are more at risk of being raped and abused, than having cancer, car accidents, war, or even malaria. Even the American women who are serving our country out of bravery are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by an enemy. Around the world there are 4.5 million men and women who are kidnapped and are forced into sex trafficking. This is sickening and injustice. The worst part is that nothing is being done, because people are just ignorant to the facts. Even this type of sexual inequality is occurring in the lives of everyday people, but in a different form.

  When women are being catcalled it is another sign of demeaning another person. Sure, it can be flattering, but if a person keeps on bothering you or won’t leave you alone, it’s disrespect.. “I began getting catcalled by men of all ages,” Bianca said, thinking back to the fearful time when she was only 12 years old and puberty just hit her. “Men started to ask if they could take me home or have my number. Sometimes they would beep or call at me from cars. Other times they would pull over and try to talk to me.” Now Bianca says that it is such a normal occurrence that she has become used to it. “I think this is unfair for women to go through this so much, that they have to accept it and deal with it.”

  Many women have become so scared, that they are afraid to walk home alone because they understand the inequality between the sexes. Bianca agrees that it’s not safe anymore. She always carries pepper spray with her, because she never knows when she might need it. She doesn’t feel safe in a world filled with her own race – the human race. But just because some women are scared, doesn’t mean that men aren’t scared either.

  Just like women, men are seen as sexual objects and they receive just as much as this type of inequality. “I think the media has improved immensely over the year. However, the only thing they’ve improved on is also sexualizing men,” Bianca said. People tend to forget that men are human as well and just like any human, they can receive disrespect and injustice, and can be raped as well. Stereotypes tell us that men are “strong”, “invincible”, the “heroes”. But they are human and they can be weak, scared, and even the guy in distress. They can receive cruelty and sexual inequality, too.

  Hailey believes that these issues with inequality for men begin with society. “There are some issues concerning men with the practice of circumcision, how society demands men to reserve emotions in order to be “manly”, and the disbelief that men can be rape victims. There’s inequality on both ends.”

  The inequality with the sexes expands more than just with oversexulaizing individuals. There is inequality with payment for women around the world. In America’s society today, both men and women work long hours to support themselves financially. That has become part of the norm. However, what has not become part of the norm, is the fact that women and men are still not paid equally for their work. It is estimated that women with full time jobs still earn 77 percent of what men earn. To make matters worse, both sexes will not be paid equally until 2058, which is 43 years away, when we will be grandparents. But those statistics are not including the minority – the women of color. African American women and Latina women make even less than white women. African American women earn only 64 cents for every dollar earned by a white man and Latina women earn only 56 cents for every dollar made by a white man.

  Take that in for a second. We are a country divided so much by inequality that women of color make even less than white women, when in reality we are the same? What decade are we living in? The 1950s? We are all the same race. We are the human race and we are erasing who we are as people as we continue to live in a world that blinds us because of inequality.

  Feminism is the fight for equality. Equality is vital to human life and without it we will never live in peace. We are people, and each of us are significant to this world. We are equivalent, whether we are black or white, short or tall, female or male. We deserve to have justice and respect for each other. We can make this happen if we work together to bury away the sexism, racism, and everything in between. So, let’s focus on the goal of equality, the goal to justice. We must stand for what is right and we must stand for what we believe in.

  And I stand and believe in this. I believe in the movement where everyone is equal, where we all have equal chances, where we are all accepted. I believe in the movement where stereotypes disappear and the truth appears. I believe in the movement where we finally realize that we are the human race with equal rights. I believe in equality for all. I believe in feminism.