Although you probably do not know who Lilly Ledbetter is (I didn’t know until this past week), you should thank her.

For the last ten years of her life, Ledbetter has fought for equal pay rights in the work place for women. After experiencing pay-based discrimination because of her sex (and learning about it through anonymous letters in her work mailbox), Ledbetter filed a complaint of gender discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Making a long story short (however, you should read the whole story over at CNN), President Obama stepped in and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Restoration Act this past week making the fight for women’s rights and equality better upheld through the law.

While I feel gratitude for Ledbetter’s ongoing battle with the Supreme Court and Congress to pass this act that will give women the rights they warrant and money that is rightfully theirs, I know that work is still left to be done.

It may seem hard to believe, but to this day, full-time working women get paid “on average, only 77 cents for each dollar full-time working men get paid,” according to the Wage Project. This happens in every occupation across the nation, and while it impacts women in different ways, the reality of it is that hardworking women with outstanding college degrees lose money in their pockets simply because of their sex.

Think about it. Imagine working at the same place, doing the same job as a man (who has the same degree and amount of experience as you), putting in the same hours, only to find out he is, in fact, making more money than you on an annual basis. How is that fair? It’s not, at all.

But it is reality. Read More »

While at a bar last weekend, a guy casually asked me what I did for work. When I told him I was a writer, he wanted to know what kinds of things I wrote. “I mostly do technology writing,” I started to tell him. “What?!” he laughed. “You’re too pretty to be interested in technology.” I almost slapped him, but instead just said, “What’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t have an answer for me, so I just walked away. And yes, I was a bit insulted.

Why is it not acceptable for girls to be interested in technology? Unless you’re an ugly girl with no social life and no social skills, of course. I guess it could be because there just aren’t a lot of women who work in technology jobs, such as IT, science, and engineering. But why aren’t there? Read More »

• Think you’re going through a dry spell? “The average [amount of sex oppourtunities] in the engineering school is probably like once a semester.” Tragic. (Miami Herald)

• The French Prime Minister’s son likes poop. And Facebook! And embarrassing his family! (Telegraph.co.uk)

• “Having women well represented in the corporate boardroom can help improve financial performance.” Maybe with that extra money we can all get paid equally…maybe? (Yahoo!)

• Why is it that I could feasibly post a variation of this story everyday? Stop the madness! (Telegraph.co.uk)

• Some fat guy ate 21 pounds of grits and won $4,000. That works out to be about $190 a pound. It was for the glory, people! (seattlepi.com)

I’m all for women’s rights, a feminist, no doubt. Recently, I even got into a heated (drunken) debate with a guy friend when he tried to claim that girls can’t drive. After all, how many accidents had he gotten into as opposed to my one measly fender bender? I refused to let him get away with such a pompous statement.

I have a point.

Somewhere along the road, as intelligent ladies demanded equal rights to our male counterparts, (Which by the way we still don’t have. 77 cents to a fella’s dollar, ladies!) men consequently decided that equal rights meant the abolishment of chivalry. Either that, or they just got lazy. (Ahem, the latter. In my opinion.)

What makes matters so atrocious is not even the actual death of chivalry, but the fact that girls everywhere have accepted it, and don’t expect much anymore.

Nowadays, wined and dined makes less sense than that damn word that lost you the spelling bee in fifth grade. (Who knew pneumonia had a P?) Girls’ expectations have become so minimal that if a guy opens the door for you he’s a Casanova, if he pays for dinner he’s practically Romeo, and if he calls you again within three days, well it must be too good to be true. Read More »

As common knowledge goes, single guys are wired to want to have sex with as many people as possible, while single women tend to withhold or avoid sex so people don’t think they’re big whores.

But according to a recent study done at the University of Florida, feelings trump societal gender expectations in monogamous relationships. When a guy and gal are committed and comfortable, society’s chains dissolve and love conquers (and allows for plentiful, egalitarian, guiltless sex). The study also discovered that men are more likely to find sex “physically and personably pleasurable.”

Surprise, surprise! Now tell me something I don’t know.

I give this study credit, though, for dispelling enduring and archaic gender roles. On the surface, we need these roles to categorize ourselves; you know, to decide who’s gonna cook and who’s gonna fix the car. Let’s face it, I don’t want to fix the car. Ever. It’s dirty. I’d much rather make a pie.

Therefore, gender roles, while restrictive, spring from truth. But they don’t need to extend past the chore chart. In the monogamous bedroom, everyone is equal. Until you hit that five – year mark and stop having sex altogether.