Women must stop passing buck, start taking responsibility

But that's not what I'm sick of. I'm sick of hearing women say that things like these are both a product of society's oppression of them.

James Baldwin, a U.S. author, stated, "It's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself."

I'll go a step further.

White women living in America today can no longer consider themselves oppressed by society. Some may argue that no American is truly oppressed, and that all of the struggles they suffer are class related, but I'm speaking only about white women because I can't feel completely confident talking about another person's experience.

Oppression, by definition, is to keep down by severe and unjust use of force or authority, or to weigh heavily on. In my years of personal experience and in the combined experiences of my peers, I have never seen a woman of my generation kept down by severe or unjust force.

Jobs in State College are more limited than the demand for those jobs. It has nothing to do with being oppressed. Out in "the real world" my generation will be judged by our education and our experience, not our gender.

As women, we can no longer blame society for our faults and failures.

The issue where some will probably disagree with me is socially induced ideals of physical beauty. Physical standards are set for women in the media and through mental conditioning by men.

Example: A guy friend is walking through your apartment and sees Cindy Crawford scantily dressed on the cover of your new Cosmo. He picks it up and comments on how beautiful she is and how he'd really like to . . . well . . . get to know her better.

Click. It's in your head now. The connection between Cindy and attractiveness formed and you now have something to measure your own attractiveness by.

But is this really oppression? Nope. If a woman views herself one way or another it's her own choice. Women are responsible for their own reactions. They can't blame male oppression when they are making the decision themselves on how to feel. They either allow the opinion to affect them or they don't.

The same word used to describe the situation of a slave in the 1800s is used to describe the experience of today's white woman. I think that's not only a gross exaggeration, but also a problem. People will lose sight of the true oppression in slavery because the term has been diluted with visions of the current female experience.

Women today are not oppressed, but rather they are challenged. And as a whole, they are challenged only slightly more than everyone else. Oppression is much too strong a word.

Women who do not feel like equals in the classroom, in the workplace or at life in general feel so by their own accord. No tyrannical force makes them feel that way.

At the close of this Women's History Month, I would like to be able to say that women have made some progress in the fight for equality. Although we still make a little less money, we still have to put up with physical standards and we are usually still the primary caregivers, we are not still oppressed.

We have the opportunity to vote, to pursue the career of our choice, to own property, to hold government positions, to take the lead and to change the world. We have power that women of the early 1900s only dreamed of. Men may still hold top positions in politics, business and finance, but we now have the opportunity to change that. So let's quit complaining about our situation, get out in the world and prove that we know how to handle and work the power that has been won for us.

Let's make the challenges in society equal for men and women.