The Battle for Feminism in 2022

In a pandemic-driven world, a lot is up for debate. We’ve had many cultural conversations on finding your place, knowing who you are, and what your worth is. Life is complicated. It’s critical to find space at the table for everyone. Equality and equanimity are essential - no matter our tax bracket. Because of the pandemic, many of us have heard the wolves at the door. We know someone who lost their job, their house, or watched their life go underwater. We saw the lines at the food banks, we got the stimulus checks, but many of us paid child support or made deals with the devil to keep the lights on.

We’ve learned the world can break with a few screws turned, because ours is a fragmented social system. And that failure isn’t drawn upon party lines. Because it’s an easy topic to angry up the blood, we’re still arguing about what it fundamentally means to be a human in America in 2022.

No matter the breakthroughs, the fight for a woman to be a true equal is still a back-alley boxing match. How in 2022 is feminism still a thing? How are we still debating a woman’s place?

Women have had to work from home with a baby on a hip while also managing to keep the wheels of their professional and personal lives moving. And guess who makes up most of the nurses who’ve treated the world during a pandemic? Women. The World Health Organization went so far as to say, “Women deliver global health, and men lead it.” Women make up 70% of the global health workforce.

Women have dealt with more job losses, increased time spent on unpaid household work and childcare, and are more likely to experience household violence than pre-pandemic.

Are women more emotional than men? Sure, but you know what, every great boss I’ve ever had has been a woman. That emotional balance goes a lot longer than a man’s “take the bull by the horns” attitude regarding basically any hurdle in life. If women led the world, there would probably be a whole hell of a lot less war because they’re vested in talking about things rather than pulling out dicks for the sake of who’s got more world-ending toys. In my experience, women aren’t leading by smashing their enemies but rather by investing emotionally into those around them for collaborative success. Men want glory on the battlefield. Look at the scores of the dead and those who decided to pull the trigger. It certainly wasn’t someone in a tasteful pantsuit.

Do you know who nailed handling COVID? Countries with female leaders: New Zealand, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, have been internationally recognized for their pandemic responses. Instead of pulling some Juicy Fruit American cowboy shit, these women were proactive with social distancing early, gathering expert advice, and unifying their countries with transparent processes and compassionate communication.

We’re also still debating dollars earned by the hour. Sign the check. This isn’t rocket science. Pay people their worth, no matter what body parts they have. And if she chooses to have children, she needs time off to be a mom and be within a system that won’t rob her of her livelihood when she expresses the need to build a crew of rugrats. By the same token, if a woman doesn’t want a family, no pack of middle-aged white men with bibles tucked under their arms should have any say in what she does with her body. If you don’t think plenty of Senators have someone to provide abortions to mistresses and daughters on speed dial, you’re dreaming, pal. People with money will always find a way. The lower tiers of society are punished for being just like the rest of us – a little horny.

Women should never have to look over their shoulder at night, and they shouldn’t have to cover their drinks when they go out to the bar, but they must because they’re in a system that lets men continue to walk free and clear unless someone puts them on blast. I don’t know if you know any dudes, but let’s say we get a cold or scrape our knees, we turn into gigantic crybabies. In her third trimester, my ex-wife passed a kidney stone and went to work as an ICU nurse the next day. She’s made of something a little tougher, probably because women know they handle business when a job needs to get done. Us dudes, we complain about it on the couch till it’s everyone’s problem.