After centuries of fighting for gender equality, women are still unequal to men through hard evidence of making 77¢ for every dollar a man makes for working the same job, and through softer micro-aggressions. I personally don’t believe in being pre-inscribed into specific gender roles of cooking, cleaning, or bearing children solely because I was born a woman. Soy Feminista, I am a feminist, simply because I believe that I have the right to choose my own path.
Everyone can help to push towards gender-equality, whether it is through micro or macro ways. We can start by not expecting solely women to take maternity leave, because paternity leave is just as important. We have to realize that gender equality does not equate to just equal pay, we have to look at it from a multidimensional perspective. This means giving up certain privileges that you may have, and gaining others. Ask yourself this – if you’re a woman, how can you expect to have equal pay to men if you expect him to pay for dinner every single time? Equality can be pushed in all aspects – this is why I believe in gender equality; I am just as capable if not even more, than other fellow humans, and vice versa.
This is why I decided to intern for Calala, an organization that looks to strengthen feminist and women’s rights movements, specifically in Latin America and the Caribbean. Calala does this by providing funds to support grassroots women’s initiatives and activism in these particular areas. Calala also generates resources from new sources that haven’t yet reached these organizations. Since 2010 Calala has distributed more than 120,000 euros amongst various women‘s groups and networks in Latin American countries and other associations in the Spanish State, with a particular focus on networks and groups of migrant women countries.
By Ainsley Chac, University of California Riverside
Internship Program
