This week, BlogHer's parent company, SheKnows Media, partnered with Public Radio International on the #womenslives media initiative. Basically, we want people talking about women.
We need to do this because only about 24% of all news subjects talk about women in any way, and only six percent of news stories highlight gender in/equality.
So, basically, we're ignoring half the population of the earth. Daily.
You can take a step toward changing that. We're going to talk about gender and womanhood and equality and inequality and stigma and women's health using the #womenslives hashtag.
Did you know JLaw got the paycheck shaft on American Hustle compared to her male co-stars?
Did you know heart disease is the number one killer of women and the symptoms can be different for women?
Did you know young women are harassed online three times as much as young men?
Did you know that people used to believe only boys were dyslexic because only boys were studied?
Would you stay in an abusive relationship? Why this blogger did.
That there are so many posts about surviving and witnessing domestic violence is heartbreaking, such as this one from Beauty School Scarlet, this one from Brown Girl From Boston, this one from Living Off Love and Coffee, this one from Loving Ryan (her mother's boyfriend starting their acquaintance by killing her kitten), this one from Heart of Michelle, this one from Not a Stepford Life, and this one from Transparency.
That Super Bowl domestic violence ad was a real 911 call.
I'm a feminist, and I catch myself accepting inequality all the time because it's always been that way. The whole women's paycheck thing hasn't changed, it hasn't changed! Women get charged more for everything from hair products to shoes even though that paycheck thing exists. We still don't have a female president. Women hold 4.6% of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies despite the fact more women than men graduate from college.
Change takes more than just conversation, but it gets harder to ignore or cover up things people are talking about. If you're the Facebook type, please join our Facebook group, where we'll be sharing information and talking about #womenslives every week. Because all you need to do is believe in yourself. Like a girl.
No, like a woman.