"This world has always belonged to males, and none of the reasons given for this have ever seemed sufficient."

            John Oliver pointed out that if somebody were to take a “dump” on his desk (his words—not mine) the size of the feces did not matter—what mattered was the fact that there were feces on his desk. He exclaimed, “I don’t care if it’s only three inches long because it’s still there!” Although this analogy may seem inappropriately vulgar it was one of the best ways to describe the issue at hand—the wage gap between men and women. There are many different statistics completed every year saying that women make around 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. John Oliver replayed clips of many news anchors who were attempting to make the argument that although the pay gap is there: it has improved over the years, the gap is slowly decreasing, or that it is even women’s fault because they take lower paying jobs. John Oliver’s joke about the feces is so simple when relating it to the wage gap. The problem is that there is a gap in the amount men get paid vs. women. It does not matter how small or large the gap is—which news anchors keep attempting to focus on—the gap is still prevalent. Just because the amount of feces on your desk is extremely small—it’s still there. So many Americans attempt to make excuses for the gap, but they are so busy defending it that they belittle the problem, which makes people often forget that this problem needs to be fixed. 

           

            Hanna Rosin explains that, “Yes, the United States and many other countries still have a gender wage gap. Yes, women still do most of the childcare. And yes, the upper reaches of power are still dominated by men. But given the sheer velocity of the economic and other forces at work, these circumstances are much more likely the last artifacts of a vanishing age rather than a permanent configuration.” Rosin believes that although gender inequalities are still our reality today, they are very likely to change as we progress into the future. Men are beginning to realize that women are their equals in every shape and form. In fact some men are willing to admit that women exceed men. Ronald Ericsson, a biologist, was infamous for claiming that the male sperm was stronger, which infuriated all feminists of the 1980’s. However even today, Ericsson admits that,  “Women live longer than men... More of ‘em graduate from college. They go into space and do everything men do, and sometimes they do it a whole lot better. I mean, hell, get out of the way—these females are going to leave us males in the dust.” Rosin points out that she is not saying the struggle for women is over, but it is at least on an upward trend. I agree with Ashley when she noted how Mr. Ogden made sure that we considered the advancements in women’s rights—not just the remaining problems.

            The gender wage gap is evidently still a problem in our society and one that should be fixed. However, this problem stems from the fact that women are actually able to have jobs outside the household, which is something that was extremely 50-100 years ago. I appreciate Mr. Ogden’s and Hanna Rosin’s perspective to think about our history, especially the history of feminism, with a little positivity in order to attain the drive to change the future.