On the sheet of parchment, Jane Austen scribbled down intensively “Something must and will (happen to) throw a hero in her way.” A statement with power and determination. But the frowning face betrayed her worries. In a time when women were not supposed to be educated, let alone to be a writer, will the novel be truly regarded as a novel one day?
Then came Marie Curie, with a reagent bottle in one hand, a textbook in the other. She spoke to her two daughters, “We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.” In a time when stereotypes of all kinds were placed upon women, her inspiring story has empowered many female talents to get rid of the limit on their career path, and has pushed forward the progress towards gender equality.
In 1996, Ruth Bader Gindburg was reading aloud the opinion of the Supreme Court. This opinion does mark as presumptively invalid a law that denies to women the equal opportunity to inspire, participate and achieve in the society based on what they can do. Ginsburg's greatness was not only revealed in her own success as a justice in the Supreme Court, but her contribution to fighting against any exclusion of women at her time.
Looking back, I saw far more women fighting for gender equality. I saw Mulan cutting off her waist length hair and disguised herself as a male warrior. Virginia Wolf was fighting for a room of her own. And I saw Emma Watson calling for the end of gender inequality in the United Nations.
It was these trailblazers from East and West, from past and now, that paved the way to the gender equality nowadays. In China, for example, over half of the graduates today are women, surpassing males for the first time. At Tokyo this year, women made up 49 percent of the Olympic competitors. But comparison, in the 1908 games, men outnumber women 53 to 1.
However, after generations of struggle, are we seeing the light at the end of the tunnel? Nowadays, single women in their thirties are leftover women, while men in their thirties are golden bachelors. Women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman makes only 77 percent of what the average working man makes.
And my grandmother has just called me this morning to instruct me the stage etiquette of being sweet and adorable. She did not know that over half of the national finalists are girls, and many of them have won the semi-finals by wearing black dark suits, but not the pink dresses, as she has said. And actually, today's contestants are very lucky, both girls and boys, because we won the judges votes because of our speeches, but not because of the clothes that we wear.
The power of ideals have enabled women to be equal counterparts to men. And if you like to ask me whether we will achieve a complete gender equality in the future, I would definitely say “Yes.” I believe the whole world will treat both men and women equally, just in the way that the judges have done to the contestants in this speech competition.
