It consists of a small rubber or silicone cup about 2 inches in height, with a tail on in a further inch long. It holds about 1 or 1.5 ounces at a time. The cup is kind of rubbery and flexible, and to insert it you simply squeeze and fold it in half, then in half again, and fit it up inside you the same way you would a tampon. Once inside past the cervix, the mouth of the cup will pop back open, and rest gently inside you, with the tail still sticking out. You should grasp the base and give it a small turn to create a seal, and thats it! To remove, simply pull on the tail until you can reach the base, squeeze this gently and tug until it pops out. If you are using it properly there should be no spillage. Just empty the cup into the toilet, rinse or wipe with a bit of wet toilet paper, and reinsert. You should always wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water before use, and to clean the cup, after use each month, just place it in a saucepan of boiling water for about 10 minutes to sterilize it.

The Keeper has many advantages! It is re-usable, so you are saving money, and saving the environment! It will last for up to ten years, and costs between $30 and $50 depending on your source. It comes in latex rubber or silicone for those with latex allergies. Depending on your flow it can go without emptying for about 3 hours or an entire day. When I am at my heaviest, I change it in the morning, lunchtime and when I get home in the evening, then maybe also before I go to bed. On days with light flow, it can stay in all day, and just be changed in morning and nighttime. It cuts down on mess and smell; I have one friend who loved it when she tried it because it removed the burning sensation that her vagina used to feel when menstruating, by keeping all the flow contained.

Other feminine products, specifically tampons and to some extent pads, are made of materials that have been highly processed and bleached. These can be extremely dangerous in the long term, as these materials are up against very sensitive areas for long periods of time. Bleached cotton tampons can have some serious health effects, perhaps even leading to forms of cancer. The Keeper is so comfortable once you are used to it, that you will barely know it is there; it can be worn overnight, while travelling, during sports or any physical activity. The only time I have experienced discomfort while wearing is while riding a bicycle, because the tail of the cup pokes out a little bit, and horseback riding may be similar; but it is not enough to keep me off my bike.

In short, it allows you all kinds of freedoms while on your period that other feminine products do not, and is safe, affordable and reusable. When you try it, you will be so impressed, and you will never go back.

I noted, while assisting my nephew and his wife in moving their household over the weekend, that there is very little handy work that I cannot master, with the right tools and a friendly little chat with any one of the little orange-clad clerks from that chain of stores. In contrast, the males in attendance at this moving event, with the exception of my nephew’s father-in-law, were virtually incapable of logically calculating the required steps to complete even the simplest task.

Where have all the manly men disappeared to? Personally, I think they have abandoned the traits of utility and strength in favour of displaying their testosterone through the lyrics of gangster rap and showing their underwear over their waistlines. At least, that is what I could determine from the sampling of my nephew’s buddies present over the weekend. But calling women your “bitches” and showing that you can get the “bling” doesn’t even remotely move my hormones in the same way as watching a sweaty guy in work boots swing a drill around. Rrrrrrroowwwwwwwwwwrr!!! Now, that can make me swoon.

But as I paint my own walls and install my own fixtures, change my own tires and open my own jars, I feel the painful void that has been left by the sad, strange absence of the rugged guy. I wonder sometimes, as they watch us hoisting tire jacks and buying power tools, if they, too, sigh with melancholy and dream of the day when women were girly and giggly and not closely gaining on their corporate asses.

The paradigm seems to be that with cloning and sex toys and what not, women could conceivably reach a point where our need for men has become obsolete. Yikes!!!! How very unnatural that seems. But I say, “Boys!! Do not abandon hope yet!! It’s not too late to save yourselves! Ride a horse! Swing a lasso! Call me ma’am! But for God’s sake, please, please, please, at VERY least, learn how to install a flush anchor and caulk a sink!!”

I often dream of what it must have been like to live in times of chivalry. I bet it was glorious. Those must have been times of great romance and extreme passion amongst big strong take charge kind of men and their most receptive and delicate flowers known as woman. I let my mind wander to a time when men opened doors and took off their hats to a young woman passing by. I yearn to know what it must have felt like being guided through the entrance of a doorway with a gentle but firm hand placed lovingly on the small of my back. How sexy is that? I guess I was born a few decades too late.

How did we get here? How did we come so far? We have overcome so much. We are allowed to vote, to speak freely without ridicule. We can dress the way we want and work for our own money and run huge corporations. We have fought for equality, to be treated with respect and not be overlooked. Hell, I wouldn’t be able to write this article, if women hadn’t fought for their rights. We have come so far! But at what price? Haven’t we lost something as well? We lost all the good men! We have taken advantage of this power and now we have reversed roles with them. We are the bread winners now. We are the ones making more money but we are also still taking care of the house, the kids, the bills and the 5 day work week. Now we have put on ourselves more than what we were really ready for. We have chosen men that want us to take care of them instead of them taking care of us. We’re not only domestic goddesses any more more. We a working class super women.

I think we should really think about the situations we are in and really ask ourselves are we where we need to be as strong, powerful and successful women? Are we one half of a healthy equal relationship or are we taking care of a man that’s only there for the perks? Are we treating our love lives like a business deal? We need to fix this role reversal situation before it gets out of control. Let’s use some of that power of persuasion to get those men acting more like our men instead of our children.  

Over the past several years, I have become acquainted with the power of belly dance in the average woman’s life. Fairly new on the scene, or at least new to our small valley, is tribal belly dance. The thing that I have noticed is a push back against the ever-so-thin style of ballet that was advanced as “the thing to do” when I was a child growing up. Myself, I have a strong history of dance, mostly modern and jazz, and, being a woman of some size, ran afoul of that particular prejudice against true woman-shaped dancers. If someone had a weight problem, breasts that were larger than average, or she was too tall, she was not encouraged to be a dancer–or at least a ballet dancer, especially professionally. Dancers, for years, have been encouraged to be a certain shape and size. There was even a story (this was a news story I remember from 60 minutes) about women who had collagen injected into their lips and had bone removed in order to look like a particularly favored famous ballet dancer. It was difficult to be a plus-size dancer back then because the scene was not one in which being able to dance well was the ultimate deciding factor, it was how you looked. One of the most beautiful women I know ran into trouble because of the size of her chest. She persisted and even started her own dance group, while I moved to dance types that were a little more tolerant if you didn’t look anorexic. However, in college, it was clear that to go pro, you couldn’t look like me. 

Now there is belly dance. Small women, big women, all women are accepted and encouraged in this type of dance. One of my favorite names of a dance group is “Fat Chance Belly Dance,” and this group sort of formed the template and set down the rules, according to what I have learned, as to the moves that define American Tribal Style. As you can guess, in this troupe the women are of various sizes, beautiful in motion, comfortable (or getting comfortable) with their own bodies. My own dance troupe is a cross-section of body styles and ages, as well. My teacher long and lean, and young. My dance sisters are older and younger, short, willowy, pudgy, voluptuous. In tribal fusion, our style of belly dance, there are elements of jazz, ATS (American Tribal Style), cabaret, modern, and even a little ballet. As its name suggests, the styles are fused. We learn the basic elements of ATS, and then add on.

Speaking further of the belly-dance style. I believe it shares a part in the rise of the sacred feminine recently, with its the empowering of women. I believe this is because it embraces all the various physical forms of woman, promoting an opposite view of Hollywood’s physical beauty of so many years–the bulimic, anorexic stereotype that extends back to Twiggy,

Image via Wikipedia

who was the anti-heroine and the bane of my pudgy growing-up years. The belly dancer celebrates the belly, complete with its stretch marks, the battle scars of childbirth.

The moving dance meditation calls on us to honor ourselves, our ancestors, the floor we dance on, and our dance sisters. In the tribe or troupe, we are accepted and we are beautiful. To look for strength, we only have to look as far as the sister beside us. In addition, we get more fit (who knew?). Belly dance is all about “core strength.”

In general, movement is basic and trends come and go, but the interest in belly dance goes back a long way in America. The Cabaret style of belly dance came down from early motion pictures. Who can forget the dancing girls in their glittery costumes dancing on the silver screen? Their smoky looks burned holes in men’s minds. In our town, we have many troupes of various styles. We have several cabaret troupes, with their flashy costumes. Sequins and shiny material is the basic here. The hands are flashy. The moves are sharp, and, somewhat unfortunately in my own opinion, this style of belly dance is associated with sex and seduction. We also have a more traditional Arabic style of belly dance, while occasionally incorporating various folkloric styles of dance. One of the groups here calls their style Pagan-style. 

In the cabaret style and the more traditional style, they also have men dancers. However, in the tribal style my troupe does, it is a women-only club, making it comfortable for all of us who participate to be ourselves.  Though the styles of belly dance are many, all of them have this is in common, the joy of movement, the closeness of sisters and fellow dancers.

It is not my goal here to get fully into the various styles of belly dance. There are many writers who have already written on this. I want, instead, to look at the social trends in belly dance. It is more than movement that brings women out. There is the costuming, along with the simple joy of having a tribe or a troupe that a woman belongs to. In our troupe, we got together for a sewing circle, working on our costumes. I had never been to a “sewing” circle and came with my own angst about what was to transpire, being convinced I was going to embarrass myself. Instead, I was amazed at how many women had no clue how to sew, or how to use a sewing machine. My own fears were for nought. I found there were several professional women there who had never sewn anything (I actually had Home economnics and had to learn to sew to some extent, though it is not my bliss by any means).

I realized, through this experience, that missing from our busy lives, in this day and age, is community. I have friends who talk about it all the time, this lack of community. We seek it now through Twitter, Face-book, My Space, I guess even in Triond. In our cyber-world, we seek connection. Our hard-won freedom, as women, of going to work and having our husband’s participate fully as partners in our world, has resulted in a disconnect with many of the coffee klatch, the connection over the back fence with our neighbor, the women’s clubs, sewing circles, knitting circles, and/or simply learning at our mother’s and grandmother’s knees. In my small community where I grew up, for instance, all the women in the town got together to make quilts for everyone. I have a quilt that group created. In it are patches my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother put in. I am lucky to own it, this representation of a time when the women of a community were so connected. Please don’t get me wrong. There are women in community groups; however, we are more likely to get involved in a work-related coalition or organization (that was all I was involved in until this dance group), rather than something with a more homey twist.

I have seen the need in myself and other women to reconnect, in a very basic way, to our feminine self. If this were not the case, why would we be so fascinated with the skirt, the decorated bra, turbans, sequins, veils–all of it so opposite to a power suit, or the sensible shoes of the nurse. In this form of dance, we celebrate the feminine–the belly, the place that life grows. This form of dance, the belly dance came out of the harem. It was made for women by women. Those who have practiced it for years tell me of its origins as exercises to strengthen the body for childbirth, and to recover afterward. These moves are beautiful, fluid, and each movement strengthens the body as it isolates each and every muscle. So many other forms of exercise also strengthen these areas, but in belly dance the emphasis is on the beauty of the movement, and its history is that of women’s strength. In the belly dance, we see the face of the goddess, the goddess in ourselves and every other woman we dance with. We come back to our homes feeling stronger, more connected, ready to go on with the mundane work in our lives. In our daily lives, we remember the dance and are children again, dancing around the room–beautiful, exotic, complete.

(This video shows a variety of styles and a joy of dancing, set to my own song “To Dance,” a song about dancing of all kinds [the dance of life] and what gives each of us joy).

I don’t know who is suffering worse; my better half or myself. One thing is for sure, he going through it right with me. The poor man has to adjust to my hot flashes or cold sweats. He has been a saint through it all. He’ll get up & turn up the furnace when I’m freezing then in less than three minutes he’ll get up and turn the furnace down and crack the door when I’m sweating. He has been very good at reminding me to take my Black Cohosh.

 I’ve thought about getting on the hormones to help relieve the symptoms. I’ve read the hormones can be quite dangerous. I’ve tried the over the counter aids such as Estroven and Black Cohosh. The Black Cohosh does seem to be helping more than the Estoven. Black Cohosh is one of the main ingredients in the Estroven along with other herbs and vitamins.

I don’t know how much longer I can take it before I cave in and get on the hormones. I called my doctor once already and had him call me in a prescription; I just didn’t pick it up. I am trying as hard as I can to ride it out. I think if I knew how long I was going to be dealing with this it would help. The not knowing how long it’s going to last is the worse part.

Or are you happier if you are more financially independent if ever you have chosen career first before love life.

In my lifetime, I never saw a perfect journey. There’s always some challenges to it and there are choices to make. I see women who have had booming careers and business but they’re divorced or their children are in rehabilitation centers or not doing great in work. I also have a lot of instances that I see a loving average family with women 100% depending on their husbands and are faced with challenges on how to be a perfect wife or housewife.

There’s a sayings in science “No two matters can occupy a same space at the same time” which simply means you cannot place any two materials in the same place at the same time, it just can’t. I can also relate this statement with the proverbs “No one can serve two masters at the same time”. I know there are many who are trying to multi-task but still there are loop holes no matter what; other emptiness that could have been field up if women are 100% focusing on one aspect either career or family life.

Nowadays, women are being challenged to stand up and become independent and step out of the house and earn. Women are becoming stronger; they are now scientists or leaders of nations, engineers, computer operators, wrestlers, basketball players, construction workers or works that are usually done by men. Women are becoming equal to men in any forms. Women are internationally challenged because some men just cannot handle the job anymore. That is women are also faced with challenges that supposedly for men to handle.

Women are usually expected to be just at home and take of the kids, the household and called “the light of the home” while men are the breadwinners. But since today’s needs are not wholly met if only one works in a household, women are taking off their apron and work outside to add up to the total household income. Men also understand this situation and sharing the responsibilities in the house chores. But about the children, only women have the special kind of care than men do not have. Women gave birth to these kids; they were inside of her in 9 months. Oftentimes, children get closer to their mothers than fathers.  That is why I think no matter how ok the situation about mixing family life and career, there are loop holes that are hard to fill up.

Society today is embracing the new role of women that is why kids understand their parents for the lack of time and attention. There are just worst effects that parents cannot control especially if their kids are rebels or have huge problems with depression and anger management. Kids with busy parents usually go to other friends for comfort and may end up abusing drugs, teen pregnancy and crime.

For the career part, there are no questions about that. Women are organized and they can work any job with grace and turns out pretty well, maybe better with men in some areas. Women are very intelligent and wise – for advertising, marketing and financial aspects, women workers are very common. There are women who are in Engineering field as well and still very successful, some also work in computer interface where men are usually very good of. There are also women who are now picking up their hammers and starting construction careers with grace.

But can you mix it? I think YES and NO. Yes in the sense that it adds up to household income and women feel more useful than just being a house manager; and no in the sense that the kids may not be monitored properly. These kids are our future, if we cannot mold them to be good individuals who will be our future?

Size zero?

More and more women are taking extreme measures to loose weight and become a ‘perfect size zero’ and why not a lot of celebrities and models are a size zero so isn’t it the perfect size to be? The thing is celebrities are almost as if they are in competition with each other who can shift the most weight quickest and take it to the extreme, other people should not copy this trend as it is bad for the body and also it needs to be realised that some people are naturally small and some people have disorders so to talk down a size zero is also offensive to someone that is a size zero as it is not always deliberate and there is nothing wrong with being a zero if that were the size you are meant to be.

The pefect ten?

What percentage of women now do you think are a size ten? Sometimes it may look as though everyone except you has a great figure when infact how do you define great? What makes a size ten so perfect? Do you think it has anything to do with men? Men half the time wouldnt even be able to guess what size you are let alone sifting through women for the ‘perfect ten’. It has been said that men are attracted to an ‘hour glass’ figure if this was so then why are so many women on diets? In my opinion there is no such thing as a ‘perfect ten’ if this were true then why do so many size ten’s have insecurities about either being to fat or too thin? The ‘perfect ten’ is just another size, just another feature about yourself that makes you you. Size ten can be defined as perfect but it is not all time perfect as all other sizes are just as perfect.

Breasts?

For starters how big is too big and what would you describe as small? What is the perfect size? No-matter what size you are, it is the correct size if your having boob job’s how do you know what size your meant to go for? Who say’s what size is right and what if it changes? This is no joke there are a lot of risks involved in changing your appearance and is it worth it? Worth it for who? If you have insecurities about yourself you should ask yourself why and think realistically what is wrong with just being you?

‘Imperfections’

In my opinion there is no such thing, whatever you’d describe as an imperfection should be carried with pride as these are signs of life and yourself, its what seperates you from others. It gives you your individuality. If you dont have that then what makes you so special?

Life is not a competition, life is to be lived! 

When I turn on a television I can easily determine what era a particular program has come from; I can determine this by the way the woman is portrayed. The older shows are more reserved with women, making them seem almost fragile. The shows from the late 80’s and 90’s portray women as if they have some kind of a vengeance and they are almost not normal. The newer programs portray woman as “perfect”. My only concern is why? I am just not sure why women have had so many different stereotypes through out the years or why they have stereotypes at all? Networks such as; “Lifetime” and “Oxygen” are the only stations that do a good job in capturing the true image of a woman (in my opinion). These networks focus solely on real life events and real life stories from real women.

Even the positive stereotypes of women are easily turned into a negative. For example; now and days some woman in television have their own careers , moving away from the old stereotype of the homemaker, but just because you give a woman on television a career does not mean it is going to make stereotyping any better. On the sitcom “Scrubs” Elliot Reed (played by Sarah Chalk) is a doctor, but she is also a good looking emotional disaster, which brings me to my point; she has a career, but she is still stereotyped as beautiful, overly emotional and a little bit ditzy. Unfortunately these stereotypes don’t stop at “Scrubs”; there are many other shows that copy this exact stereotype or a worse one.

While doing a generous amount of research on this subject I found that studies show “Women are also depict as less intelligent then men and generally appear to be weak. The roles which women are assigned tend to be marital and family oriented. In addition, women are rarely shown to be able to successfully combine marriage and employment. Women are typically younger then men on television and usually disappear between the ages of 35 and 50. Ironically, women are five times more likely to be blond.” What bothers me the most though, is that this does not surprise me. These studies are obvious to anyone who has watched television, including me.

Today, every one of us is spending more of our leisure time watching Television. The shows on television influence our decision process, shaping our perceptions for the world. While researching this topic the most valuable statement I found was “Stereotyped characters can and will negatively influence the way we view real people in society.” TV programs infiltrate our lives, guiding us with what we are supposed to wear and how we are supposed to look and act. In any case, it is obvious that women are highly and inappropriately stereotyped in television, no matter when the date. Woman should not be portrayed as helpless homemakers, insane dominating monsters or perfect Barbie dolls, but as individual and normal human beings.

Women in today’s society have become too comfortable and have left the fight for equal rights unfinished with unacceptable results. There are many reasons why women should continue to fight for equal rights. Families are still raising their daughters with thoughts of the past in mind, not the future. Lower salaries are being accepted. Men are paid more than women at the same job with the same qualifications. Women jump through hoops for a promotion, but yet men are constantly being chosen over them. Yes, women have come a long way, but still have not achieved one hundred percent equality in the workplace.

A tradition is an inherited pattern or way of life (Merriam, 1997). Women’s biggest problem in career growth is how she was raised. In the 1800’s, young girls were raised with the understanding that bearing children and being responsible for the home was her primary role as a being (Samuels, 1995). Women have fought to change that idealized role in society. Even though women do not want to be viewed as slaves to the household, they are still involved in raising their little girls with that very idea.

Constantly parents push their little girls into hopes of marriage and raising children of their own. The world’s daughters need to be encouraged to be able to stand on their two feet and claim careers and their own success stories. There is nothing wrong with having babies or being a good wife; however, parents are crippling their daughters by making that the very goal of their lives. Could this be the very reason why men still dominate women in the workforce? The future generations of women are being raised to accept being second-class citizens. “(Man) uses her (woman) as the instrument of his pleasure… he furnishes himself with a housekeeper, whose chief business is in the kitchen, or the nursery, and whilst he goes abroad,” states Sarah Grimke, a well known female rights activist of the 1800’s (Grimke, 1837).

Women do not need to cripple the next generation with these evil thoughts. In the past, men have shaped women into the molds of his desires. Women should go forth and allow their daughters to seek their own destiny and to create their own molds. “The most powerful obstacles to a girls’ education are poverty and tradition. But these can be changed (Ntaiya, 2004).” These powerful words are from the young, Kakenya Ntaiya. She is a youth advisor from Africa for the United Nations Population Fund. Her experience of overcoming poverty and traditions is an inspiration to all women. Her tribe in the Maasai village believes that women belong to their husbands and to the kitchen. The Maasai girls are raised with the only thought of becoming a good wife to her future husband, most likely to be wed at age twelve. Kakenya broke the cycle of her tribe by begging her father to allow her to finish her education. She also begged her community members to allow her to go to the United States to go to college. It is because of young, motivated women like Kakenya that traditions can be broken. Traiditions can be changed, but it starts with each individual woman.

Did you know that a woman will lose more than $523,000 in her lifetime according to the most recent United States Census (Keller, 2000)? Discrimination in the workplace hurts women’s pocketbooks. Women are held at higher standards but are continually robbed in their paychecks. A man with the same qualifications as a woman is started at a higher pay rate. Why is that? There are so many men on top of corporations that control women’s salaries and promotions. Until women dominate the top of “Corporate America,” pay scales will never be fair. This also is an effect of traditions discussed previously. Traditions effect the motivation of women to reach the top.

According to Vicky Lovell, the study director for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women are discriminated on the pay scales even with the work experience and training that is noted on their resume. Women earn eighty-eight cents on a man’s dollar with the same experience and qualifications. At a national average, women as a whole earn seventy-three cents to a man’s dollar (Keller, 2000). That is a huge gap in pay. To be fair, this census did include all women in all working positions including full-time and part-time positions. Even with that in mind, that is a huge number of American women that are being ripped-off by their employers. Studies show that it will be approximately fifty years before women catch up to men’s salaries. It will take an African-American woman a whopping seventy-five years (Stone, 2004). Women, as a whole, need to become more active in fighting for equal pay. The United States has passed the Equal Pay Act, but what good is it if it is not enforced? If a woman finds that she is underpaid due to her gender, it is her responsibility to report it. If the problem isn’t handled correctly or handled at all, she needs to take it to the courtroom. If women continually allow their employers to discriminate against them, then the problem will never cease.

Why is it that the majority of women do not reach the top? Is it due to poor performances? Maybe that is the case sometimes, but most of the time it is from being overlooked by male employers. Judy Joy (real name is kept disclosed) is an example of this issue. She has been with her job for four years. When she began her job, she made sure to inform her male district manager of her personal interests in growing in the company. He told her of the numerous things that she needed to work on and certain experiences that she needed to gain. She worked on the things that he needed her to work on and she even took on a lower position just to get the extra experience that she needed to move up. In time, her store manager told her district manager that she was ready for her next step. She was told to transfer to another store to gain even more experience. She did as she was told. Then, her new store manager told the district manager that she was ready to move up. Four store transfers later, she was told that a new store was opening up. If she was interested in making this “last” move, then she would set up the department, train the new manager, and then would be promoted within a month.

She agreed to move to a store that was a further drive for her if she was to be promoted. After Brandi had opened the department, she noticed a new male manager in the building. She was curious as to who he was, so she introduced herself. He introduced himself as the new presentation manager, the job in which she had been chasing for nearly four years. When she had asked the district manager about why she did not get the job, he replied that the man had more experience and then walked away. Experiences like this happen all the time. Men claim that reason why women are not at the top is due to lack of motivation. Judy was extremely motivated. She transferred and moved her personal belongings to six different store locations. Judy worked very hard and deserved it. That was the very reason that made her start to think that she needed to continue her education. Education is something that no man on the planet can take away. Men have kept their place at the top of corporations. Also, men look at for other men. In Judy’s case, she was pushed and pushed to work and to perform. A man held a promotion over her head because he knew how bad she wanted and needed it. She was used to his advantage and then left in the cold. Unfortunately, that is the heart of male-dominated careers.

Women have come a long way when compared to today and the past; women still have a long way to go to achieve equality and fairness in the workplace. Women have some fault in the drive for success. “(Women) are brought up with the absurd idea, that marriage is a kind of preferment; and that to be able to keep their husband’s house, and render his situation comfortable, is the end of her being (Grimke, 1837). Traditions are a woman’s identity if allowed to be. These traditions can be changed, if women change them. According to Victor Fuchs, a woman’s role as a wife and mother negatively affects her successes in her career by limiting her education which limits her promotions and salaries (Samuels, 1995). Women continually struggle for promotions.

Evaluations for job performances happen all the time, but the trick is keeping it fair for both genders, according to Karen Nussbaun of AFL-CIO’s Working Women (Keller, 2000). The numbers and statistics of this paper are real and frightening. The numbers and statistics cannot be argued by men due to most articles and studies used for this paper are in fact told from different perspectives and most of these studies are conducted by men themselves. A ridiculous article about a study, that a man performed, concluded that men are smarter than women. The researcher, John Philippe Rushton, performed 20,000 verbal tests taken by university students across the world. It revealed that on average, men’s IQ’s are five points higher than women’s.

However, in argument to his data, he had twice as many women who took the tests than men (Clerkin, 2006). The man who performed that test was drastically grasping at straws to prove that the reason why men are at the top of their careers is not because of discrimination, but because of men’s IQ’s. Mr. Rushton’s theory is squashed due to faulty analysis. Women need to be informed of where they stand in society and in their careers. When a woman is informed, what is she going to do to impact a change? Every woman has that responsibility. Women need to stand up and make their voice heard that “almost” equal is not acceptable.