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Feminism is necessary in modern day United States.

So, I would first like to note, that my opponent does not disagree with my overarching observation, that gender inequality makes feminism necessary, so this debate now boils down to whether there is sufficient inequality in America. Thus, if I can prove there exists sufficient inequality in any of the three grounds, (social, political, economic) I have effectively won the debate, now, I will defend my points and continue to attack my opponents points. Point 1) On the question of the wage gap, my opponent attributes this difference in wages to the fact that men biologically are more likely to take STEM jobs that are high paying. She states that women shouldn"t be pressured into STEM jobs, they need to be encouraged to do what they love. This fact is well and good, but it is not the only reason that women are being paid less. From RISMedia, there are three reasons why women are paid less than men, only one of which is the fact that women gravitate towards lower paying jobs. My opponent ignores two critical reasons. 1) Women ask for less money. RIS states that according to a study published by HIRED, women ask for lower salaries then men, and leave the table with less money. Also, women ask for an average $14,000 less in compensation than men overall nationwide. This fact needs to be remedied. This has nothing to do with job interests and what women love to do, women generally are too timid and need to learn to be more confident in their skills when searching for employment. Thus women should be empowered to ask for more when they search for jobs, hence warranting feminist movements. 2) Discrimination against women is present in the workplace. RIS states that research shows that many women with same credentials who work in the same exact jobs as men earn less. Furthermore, women who chose to work in high paying jobs, previously dominated by men, such as biologists and designers, had their compensation in those jobs declined. In order to ensure an equal and just America, we need to get rid of workplace discrimination, feminism is a means to that end. Furthermore, in response to my point one, my opponent quotes that the pregnancy leave causes women to be paid less. The statistic that I used to justify my claim of the wage gap stated that women"s wages are 79% of men"s average wages. Thus my statistic doesn"t even take maternity leave into consideration because my statistic deals with wages not pay per se. Point 2) Attacking my point 2, my opponent states that it is the people that choose to vote for men, not women for office, but she fails to consider the following. From School of Public Affairs (SPA), reasons there are less women in office than men include: 1)Women are less likely than men to think they are qualified to run for office. SPA states that a 2001 study shows that men are 60% more likely than women to assess themselves as "very qualified" to run for office. Furthermore, (from SPA) the gender gap does not stem from gender differences in direct political experiences, or exposure to and familiarity with, the political arena. Thus, this gender differential in confidence is arbitrary. Feminism is necessary to empower women into being more confident. 2)Women are less likely than men to receive the suggestion to run for office. SPA states that in a study, a less percentage of women than men have received the suggestion to run for office. The study even breaks the results into separate categories and women are shown to be lower in EVERY category. Thus, feminism is necessary to empower women into believing that they should run for office. Point 3) My opponent attributes gender roles to biological differences but that is not entirely the case. University of Notre Dame states that gender theorists point to the variations in gender roles observed among different cultures in arguing that gender " our masculinity or femininity " is a social construct rather than an innate biological characteristic. Thus, biological aspects play a role, but do not solely make up gender roles. Furthermore, the problem with gender roles is not that it itself is inherently unjust. It leads to discrimination. I am not advocating abolishing gender roles because as my opponent pointed out, it will always exist. I think that feminism is need to spread the message that it is ok to break those gender roles. Many women feel constrained by their gender expectations, which is something feminism can aim to fix. I"ll move on to attack my opponent"s arguments. She states that feminism has become useless, and as a result, feminists are making stuff up to attack and many are attacking men. I completely agree with the fact that THOSE feminists are unnecessary and are not doing much to further the cause of true gender equality in America. But, notice in those arguments she herself even admits that the statistic for how many feminists actually do this is impossible to obtain. Thus, the actual number of feminists that are "useless" can be as low as 1% for all we know. Since she does not offer any evidence on the amount of feminists that are useless and disrespectful, one cannot take those specific feminists that she pointed out and generalize them as the face of the ENTIRETY of feminism. She also states that claim that we see this more and more often and it will only get worse, but NOWHERE does she justify this claim with any evidence. My opponents argues that relative to other countries, America is already pretty ahead in terms of gender equality, so feminism isn"t necessary. But, as a more developed country this is a given, because we are much more developed then Africa, we SHOULD be more gender equal. What is shocking, is that we have less percentage of females in government than some of those countries, which is the point that I am making. Furthermore, we are not even debating whether feminism is necessary in Africa, only in America, I am just using Africa as a basis of comparison. We shouldn"t be setting our standards as low as African countries, which is why it is shocking that some of those countries have more females in government as us.