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Artist News
Gender Equality Is A Myth, writes Beyonce
By Aly Barchi | Published on Tuesday 14 January 2014
In a new fit of brilliance (not that I’m biased or anything), R&B star nonpareil Yonce Knowles-Carter has written an essay entitled ‘Gender Equality Is A Myth!’, all about just that. In it, she discusses opportunities and pay given to women in America, the crux being that, she argues, they aren’t the same as those afforded to men. Which, she thinks, is all wrong.
The full essay is published in ‘A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back From The Brink’, the new issue of journalist Maria Shriver’s eponymous Report, full details on which are here. The Shriver Report has also made available an excerpt from the essay, which reads as follows…
We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the US workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77% of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers and sisters earn more – commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender.
Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.
Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.
We have a lot of work to do, but we can get there if we work together. Women are more than 50% of the population and more than 50% of the voters. We must demand that we all receive 100% of the opportunities.
