J U S T I C E
N O W: In the early 1970's American women started questioning the way society set up expectations for its little girls and little boys. They realized that if, from a very early age, all the adults around you, plus TV, film, and print media always gave messages of what girls "should" be, that it was very difficult to grow up to "be" anything different. Feminism means "no limits!" The Women's Movement has had a huge impact on the way people live their lives. In a whole new way women and men started thinking about the life choices they were making. Choices about education, dating, marriage, parenting, career. Now it's much more widely accepted that any female and any male can become whatever she or he wants. Being female or male is no longer a reason, an excuse, or a barrier for getting exactly where you want to be. Pretty powerful stuff when you think about what it was like for generations before the Women's Movement. Imagine, if, just because you were a girl, you had to fight for the right to play basketball or become a police officer, a doctor, lawyer, or truck driver. Or, if you were a boy, to have to fight for the right to study dance, or became a flight attendant, a preschool teacher, a nurse, or a fashion designer. Even though U.S. law says it's illegal to pay one person less than another for doing the same job, women in this country still earn only about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men in equivalent work. There are still many men who view women as sex objects and do not believe they have the same intellectual capabilities as men. Likewise, many women still stereotype males by believing all men are have a "violent" nature and are unable to show their emotions. Gender stereotyping builds walls between people. In the case of males and females, those walls divide the whole planet into two separate teams that still, on some level, seem to be at war with each other.  Let's talk about gender stereotyping.
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