“Girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider.”
That childhood rhyme could be true today, but even with college knowledge, women are still undervalued in the work field.
Until the ’60s, males went further in their education and were more likely to graduate from college, but the tables have been turning.
According to an analysis published by the American Psychological Association, females on average have made better grades than boys in school for over a century.
The same study suggests males are twice as likely as females to find school to be a waste of time, to miss class and to be less motivated when it comes to school work and career decisions.
This is such a sad 21st century we live in. Women have worked extremely hard in school and many have furthered their education past their undergraduate degree. Yet despite all the hard work, women still only make 78 cents per dollar a man makes doing the exact same job, according to the Census Bureau.
With the exception of Montana, it’s even worse for African-American women. They only make 63 cents per every dollar a man makes.
And this inequality isn’t in just some career paths. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women on average earn less than men in virtually every occupation.
It’s clearly not valued that girls do better than boys in school — to society, it’s not about education and how well you do. If that were the case, millions more women would be CEO’s.
The status quo is a problem. The fact that America has been and is run by men — and that people have accepted that — is a huge problem.
As many of us know from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s speech, “We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.’”
Women are encouraged to go to school, but once they marry and have a family, they are expected to halt everything they have going for them. Now it’s time to play Legos with the kids, cook stew and water the tulips outside while the man acts as the “provider.” Women can provide, too. Single mothers do it every day.
According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, if the change in the gender wage gap continues to move this slowly, equality of pay won’t come for another 43 years.
We need to ditch the status quo, and quickly. And then once we do that, women need to stop seeing each other as competitors.
If a female peer gets a well-paying job, put the jealousy aside and give her a pat on the back. We are all on the same team here. We need to build one another other up, not knock each other down.
Throughout this all, we must remain optimistic. Soon enough more of our voices will be heard. We already have the brains — now we just need to keep up the willpower, and one day our dollar will be equal to men’s.
Clarke Perkins is a 19-year-old political science freshman from New Orleans. You can reach her on Twitter @ClarkePerkins.