Why We Still Need Feminism

1. Rape. Rape by strangers. Rape by fathers and uncles and brothers. Men dropping roofies in a drink in a bar. There is disagreement over how many women, exactly, get raped, but it's way too many, and it's not getting better.

2. Abuse of women by male partners. Men murdering partners when they try to break away. It's certainly not something most men do, but there are too many cases of it and it's not getting better.

3. Prostitution. Prostitution has become almost acceptable. The hit TV show House shows the lead character using prostitutes as if it's a perfectly normal thing for a single man to do. I have heard advocates for the disabled argue that the government should pay for prostitutes for disabled men. We now regularly hear politicians say that prostitution is a legitimate enterprise that should be legalized.

None of these people mention the lives of the prostitutes: the danger, beatings, disease, virtual slavery by pimps, the drug addiction that is practically a necessity to perform their disgusting duties. None of them mention the quality of life or life expectancy of prostitutes, the injuries on the job. None mention the quality of life of their children or the lives their children can expect to lead.

4. The erosion of reproductive rights in the United States. As I have argued elsewhere, free and easy abortions result in earlier abortions and less abortions, as well as better mental and physical health for women.

5. What happens to women who attain power. Look at Hillary Clinton or Sheila Copps: Women who reach the top in politics are seen as shrill castrating shrews... Or sexual opportunists flirting their way to the top... Or ugly crones who don't have lives... Or whatever.

There is an under-representation of women in the power structure. There aren't many female university professors, so female university students don't have role models. There aren't enough female managers, so many companies practice systemic sexism and don't even realize it. There aren't many female politicians, female heads of state, females on boards of directors, female CEOs, female power brokers, female rainmakers.

6. The ubiquity of pornography. Little girls walk into a corner store in their neighborhood, in an airport, or many other places that sell magazines, and they see Giant Jugs at eye level. Everyone gets spam advertising such delicacies as "underage girls masturbating!" Movies, TV shows, TV ads, billboard ads - all use (surgically and electronically enhanced) naked women to make money. The objectification of women has a devastating effect on the place of women in our society and leads to my points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

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