Feminist issues in the present time and the past centuries
The article The problem with making celebrities the face of feminism written by Alexandra Kilpatrick, Newsweek, 2015, examines the contemporary feminist issues in the current world. The author focuses on an actress, Patricia Arquette’s speech during Oscar event in Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles. Patricia addresses the existing wage gap between men and women salaries and describes the phenomenon as a gender tax payment. The actress’ primary concern in her speech is the importance of closing the wage gap to enhance equality. She further argues that there have been attempts to attain equal rights in America, but right below the surface, are issues that affect women but are being ignored. Therefore, there is a need to for all women, men who love women as well as any other individual concerned to fight for women, she added. The primary issues that are outstanding in the article are unequal wage payment as well as women revolution against the problem. The correlation between the issues in the article and the study of feminism in Europe in the 19th and 20th century is discussed as follows;
Imbalanced wage payment, as depicted in the article, is one of the practical areas of concern focused on the study of feminism in the named centuries. In the article, Actress Patricia airs out the issue during the Oscar event and sums up that women have for so long been paying for tax for many generations. This is because there has been an existing wage gap between male and female workers where the women get less payment even in situations where the employees have the same educational levels (Kilpatrick, “n.p”). Similarly, the study of European history on feminism focuses on unequal wage pay in the workplaces. Case study report explains various forms of inequality in among the two genders, and salary payment is one of the issues observed. Among other issues captured in European history is women denial on political equality (Hauch, “n,p”).
Women revolution is also seen in the article where the actress advocates for fighting for gender equality. Patricia urges women and men who love women and other people concerned to stage a fight against the existing gender biasness. She concludes by emphasizing on the need to change the people who are being depended on for addressing women’s challenges since the impacts on women have a large magnitude (Kilpatrick, ‘n.p”. Studies on European history, on the other hand, gives women a revolution against gender inequality. Revolutions paved the way for the women to give their expressions and contestation (Hauch, “n.p”). Although the objectives of the revolution were to attain a total balance between both genders, some aspects were not fully achieved, for instance, political equality.
From the research above, it can be deduced that gender inequality is a universal challenge that has never been adequately addressed despite the many attempts to stop the issue. This can be justified by the patterns which have been existing since time immemorial up to date. Similarly, the scenarios are seen in European history as well as the that in the article can also tell that the issue has been existing for long. Since the problem has negative impacts on women, measures should be taken to promote gender equality. This is possible through a collective responsibility among all the individuals concerned.
Alexandra Kilpatrick, 2015 The problem with making celebrities the face of feminism https://www.newsweek.com/problem-making-celebrities-face-feminism-319430
Gabriella Hauch, 2019 Gender and revolution in Europe, 19th-20th centuries