On Jan. 21, 2017, millions of women stormed the streets worldwide, protesting against President Donald Trump’s inauguration due to statements he made and positions he took that were regarded by many as patriarchal, as well as outright offensive. The protest’s aim was to emphasize legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues including women’s rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers’ rights. Between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people, men included, participated in the Women’s March in the United States. In total, a worldwide participation of over five million people took part in the marches.
Last year, floods of people filled up Boston Common and Charles Street. They wore pink hats, carried fiercely protruding homemade signs from the crowd, and took a stance for women and democracy. The heartfelt passion from the crowd of activists was embodied in the politicians who came to speak on Boston Common, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The march was not solely focused on women issues, but also human rights, climate change, and healthcare. These issues are a large part of a woman’s life, and most of them are still not being taken seriously by President Trump.
A deluge of revelations about powerful men abusing women led to the #MeToo movement, which has pushed a demand for deeper social and political change, leading to another impactful women’s march just across the river in Cambridge. Supporters of all genders and ages stood up for the many issues battled in 2017, with sexual harassment being a major focus. This has led to an outbreak of confidence, switching on that much needed light bulb for society. Many progressive women are now eager to build on the movement and translate their enthusiasm into electoral victories in this year’s midterm elections. Not only this, but (some) men are enthusiastically supporting the women’s movement that is becoming more and more of an open topic.
President Trump shared that “he is not a feminist,” and if he was, we would have the wrong definition of feminism. A feminist is defined as the advocacy of women’s rights, on the basis of the equality of the sexes. This does not mean women need to discourage men, but instead that women, making up half of the population, should have a voice just as loud as men.
Sexism occurs in every community, town and country, Northeastern included. After a semester of quizzes, all-nighters and never ending research papers, college students have only one card to give to their professors: the course evaluation and “RateMyProfessor”. The New York Times article, by Benjamin Shmidt, ‘Gender bias exists in Professor evaluations’; explains “the most striking differences … lie in the criteria on which men and women seem to be judged. Words that are opposites of each other frequently show the same gender skew.” Shmidt is an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University and a core faculty member at the NuLab for Texts, Maps and Networks. He downloaded the reviews from the site in 2014, making an interactive website (which is no longer running) pinpointing how often different words are used to describe men and women.
It turns out that most students are harder on their female instructors, stepping over the fine line of sexism. One of the most noticeable disparities is when male professors are labeled “geniuses”, “brilliant” or “funny”; while their female counterparts are subjected to negative adjectives like “bossy”, “mean” and “pushy”. Northeastern has a ratio of 49:51 for male to female students, meaning that female students have also become benign to this stereotype. NEU students, female professors and other female staff need to stand up for their gender, and as female equality as a whole. We need to stand up for everything it means to be a feminist, an activist and a leader. Concluding that a woman’s place is in the resistance.
Photo by Haley Holbrow