Sociological Perspective On Gender Inequality

For my op-ed piece, I have decided to choose not only a topic that is relevant to the class, but also one that is relevant to me: gender inequality. Specifically, I would like to address the question, “why is ‘feminism’ considered a ‘dirty word’?”

Viewing gender inequality from a sociological perspective, we can see that social issues regarding gender inequality, such as rape, are not the fault of “weak” women, nor are they the fault of independently aggressive men, but rather the result of purposefully erected societal structures designed to disempower women and non-binary genders. We can see this trend deeply embedded in every aspect of our culture and others: from the small, sayings and attitudes such as “boys will be boys;” to the common

place, a woman having her surname erased in favor of her new husband’s; to the horrific, the institutionalization of rape through our judicial system interrogating survivors and putting victims on trial instead of rapists. Feminism challenges this idea that someone must be put down for another person to be built up. Zooming out to look through the lens of the sociological imagination, we see the true reason that feminism is viewed as a “dirty word”: because it asks that all people be held as equal, which, to those in power, is seen as an usurpation. The sociological perspective provides insight into the taboo of equal rights for women and non-binary genders at a structural level, and reveals why feminism is viewed as so vehement a threat.
Sexism is a muzzle silencing more than half of the world’s population through maltreatment, denial of education, violence, and even murder. Yet, sexism was not on ‘TIME’ Magazine’s 2015 list of “Words that Should be Banned,” feminism was. In answering why ‘feminism’ is considered a ‘dirty word,’ we are asking why the idea of equal rights is considered more atrocious than physical acts of violence. We are asking the power of a word. We are asking who has power and who does not. The answer to this question, to these questions, will reveal not only how this distribution of power came to be, but how we can redistribute that power. The answer to this question matters because one in every six women will be raped in her lifetime. It matters because the word “racism” changed the way we viewed slavery. It matters because I am a human being entitled to the same rights as all other human beings: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.