Women are responsible for 2/3 of the work done worldwide but earn only 10% of the income and 1% of the property.

Each year 70 million girls are deprived of a basic education and 60 million girls are assaulted on their way to school.

1 in 4 women are victims are domestic violence. And every week 2 women in the UK are killed by a current or former partner.

I know this now. But I didn’t know it before Daniel Craig dressed up as a woman and stood in front of a black backdrop and was told this information.

Are we equal, he was asked.

But I have a different question for CollegeCandy readers. Why did it take Daniel Craig dressing up like a woman to get people to notice this? March 8 is International Women’s Day and I didn’t know that, either. And I know it’s Women’s History month because CollegeCandy told me it is. But what about the rest of the world? What about every other day? Why are we not more aware of the fact that women have yet to be able to hear the question “are we equals?” and answer “yes”?

Read More »

For years, women’s participation in the United States workforce was greatly limited. However, throughout the country’s history, women have made great strides toward equality in the workforce. We even get to run blogs!

So today, in honor of the female CEOs, doctors, teachers, political figures and more, our friends from the CreditScore Blog are helping us celebrate women in the workplace. Read More »

I’ve never been overly patriotic. There are no American flags hanging in my room and even if I had snagged the athletic gene in my family, I still wouldn’t wake up at 5 am twice a week for ROTC. I don’t believe like some that the U.S. is “the best country in the world,” yet I’ve always felt that as an American, I am offered more freedoms and opportunities than almost any other country’s citizens.

So, I was surprised by the news this week that America ranks nineteenth in gender equality. In other words, based on factors including salary equality, education, political representation and life expectancy, the Global Gender Gap Report determined that women in eighteen countries come out ahead of us American females.

I was disappointed, but maybe I should have been happy- nineteen is a big improvement from 31^st last year, and 27^th the year before.

Nineteenth out of 134 countries really isn’t terrible…but it isn’t exactly wonderful either. In a high school graduating class, the land of the free and the home of the brave wouldn’t have even received Honors. Iceland would be the valedictorian of woman’s equality, but I don’t suggest a mass exodus of down-stuffed-parka-wearing women to the Nordic country. (I spent one shivering winter in Chicago and that was enough for me.) Even there, women don’t have it as great as men. Read More »

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like the sheer fashion trend!) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

Earlier this month, we were asking where chivalry had gone – and I’m down with that, I’d like to know where the little sucker slipped of to, too. But what I want to talk about now is, if chivalry is gone, do we really want it back? And should we expect it?

No matter how you slice it, chivalry always smacks of gender inequality. And yeah, it’s a lot harder to complain about inequality when you’re the one benefiting from it, but shouldn’t we still stand up against it? Are we hypocrites if we don’t? Add to that the fact that most of the little things we ascribe to the idea of chivalry (flowers, love tokens, professions of undying love) are all essentially just methods of winning over or even buying our affections. Isn’t that something that we in the post-feminist era should rebel against on principal?

We’ve fought for years to say that we’re just as good as men, that we shouldn’t be treated differently – and now, like it or not, this lack of chivalry is basically just guys treating us exactly like they treat each other. Hello, feminist victory here! Read More »

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.