female empowerment Archives

The Need for Feminism: Simplified

June 3, 2026

Feminism is critical. The 19th Amendment prohibited voter restrictions on the basis of sex. The 1963 Equal Pay Act prohibited wage disparities on the basis of sex. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited both employment discrimination and education on the basis of sex. With these policies, and considering the fact that there are countries in which women are not even allowed to leave the house without a male escort, some have raised the question of whether feminism is still even needed in the United States. While this question may seem reasonable on the surface, with two extra seconds of critical thought, it becomes apparent that the situation is not as simple as that. When taking into account that equal laws often have unequal treatment and the social treatment of women, it is clear that feminism is critical for the advance of American society.

Equal laws could only create equality if the society in which they were implemented was an equal society. This is to say that the law is not equal or fair for women because the laws are modeled after men in a patriarchal society.

For example, in politics, women can participate in democracy by voting, but that is not enough to ensure that women’s voices and interests are heard. With women making up less than a third of major political offices [1], there is nothing women could do to prevent a law that hurts women from being passed—and that is assuming that every single woman voted in the best interests of their fellow American women. According to Pew Research, this lack of representation is not because women make worse politicians but because of gender discrimination, causing people not to vote for women, both parties not supporting female candidates, and the female candidates being more held back by familial obligations compared to their male counterparts [2].

Additionally, and unfortunately, the laws that are modeled specifically for women are chronically under-enforced. It is illegal to treat pregnant employees or pregnant potential employees differently, but nearly half of pregnant women report being treated very poorly upon returning to work or even during maternity leave [3]. It is illegal to change the wages of an employee on the basis of their sex, yet the gender pay gap persists—which I broke down in this article [4]. With all of these loopholes and disregard for the law, the United States ranks forty-third in gender equality [5].

Aside from those cases of inequality in business and law, what truly causes the need for feminism is the fact that there is not a single right in this nation that women can rely on. Even assuming that the law was completely fair—which it is not—there would be no guarantee for that fairness to persist without explicit constitutional protection. Remember: every amendment and law can be subject to change or be reversed entirely. Feminism aims not only to make the current laws legitimately fair for women but also to bring about the constitutional protection of those laws so women can have a secure future.

Well, if not legally, then at least socially, there is equality, right? While women do have more social freedoms than they ever had in our nation’s history, just like the law, it is not simple enough to leave it at that.

Today, women are not lobotomized simply for showcasing negative emotions, but they still do not go unpunished. Women who do showcase negative emotions are more likely than men showing negative emotions to be perceived as incompetent and literally jeopardize their wages and job status [6].

There was a time when women were not even allowed to act in the theater, and while women can thankfully do so today, women are only represented by 38% of speaking roles in cinema [7].

Women today are not expected to do all of the housework; on average, women still perform a reported ~105 more hours a year on household labor compared to men, and this is in addition to their jobs [7].

Of course, it is impossible to say that in every region in the United States, women are treated worse than men, particularly due to the fact that there are not enough studies and partially because what is “worse” is subjective. But the data of these few examples can hopefully give a snapshot that, yes, women do have it better today than in the past, but there is still so much work to be done. Feminism is more than changing a few laws; it is uprooting the internalized misogyny that is at the core of our society to ensure that women are freed from all limitations—even the invisible ones.

The question of why feminism is still needed in the United States today is a short-sighted and a frequently asked question. This article focused on the current legal and social restrictions for women, but even assuming that those did not exist, feminism would still be necessary due to the simple fact that men are also suffering under the patriarchy. This is not a battle between the sexes; it is a battle between the oppressions of society and the suffering it causes everyone. Feminism only exists because of the patriarchy and will only continue to exist so long as the patriarchy does.