by Adisyn Lee

Created on: August 27, 2008   Last Updated: September 01, 2008

I find it hard to believe that there are still those that view a woman's pursuit for equality as them in some way being less of a woman. Why is it that a woman that is strong, determined and seeking a life that is more than that of the wife and mother somehow single handedly destroying the gender? Can women not be both? Can they not be successful in careers and as wives and mothers? Have we forgotten that it was not too long ago that women did not share the same rights of men? Women were often viewed as property to be used and disposed of just the same as any other household appliance.

Luckily we don't live in those times; we live in a world that is equal in rights for both men and women. But do we live in a world that is equal in sight for both men and women? I think that while people would like to believe that they view both sexes as the equal when it boils down to it women will always be viewed the weaker. Men are superior to women physically, or in most cases, they have stronger bone density and muscle definition. It is foolish for women to believe that they can be equal to men in jobs that require brute physical strength for it is something that genetically we lack. However, is it too much to ask that women be given the same opportunities in jobs that require a muscle that we all have that possesses an equal strength?

As a woman in today's world I have rights and freedoms that the women of yesterday could only dream of. I have been given these rights at the great sacrifice of women who dared to want more out of life than laundry and baking. Their strength and determination should be celebrated and not scorned for changing the way women are viewed in and outside the home. They dared to change the world so that we could have rights that we often take for granted. We have the right to vote, the right to equal employment and pay, the right to an education, the right to jointly own property, these are rights that we would not have had these women just sat quietly as they were told.

When I look upon our elder women, the ones that are immaculate housekeepers, expert mothers and grandmothers, master bakers with a rolodex of mouthwatering recipes kept in their heads, I wonder if there was once a childhood dream that they longed to fulfill. Did they want to be doctors, lawyers, or writers? Did they have dreams that in their time could only be imagined and never be obtained? I love that when I tell my four year old daughter that she can be and do anything that her heart desires, that I know in my heart the barriers that had once held back our grandmothers have long been demolished so that she can truly aspire to be anything.

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