A NOW Event: Equal Means Equal
Wednesday August 23 @ The Tropic Cinema

By Ian Brockway

In celebration of women receiving the right to vote on August 18, 1920, the Key West chapter of NOW, along with Tropic Cinema is showing “Equal Means Equal” by Director Kamala Lopez. Lopez, an actor on Star Trek: Voyager, “Clear and Present Danger” and 24 among other films, directs a pointed and thorough documentary on the deliberate subjugation of women in American society that is enforced to this day. [Showtimes and trailer at TropicCinema.com.]

The film is headlined by the film’s producer Patricia Arquette and Gloria Steinem. Lopez delivers sobering fact after fact with warmth and empathy, and she has the just directness of a Marvel superhero. Her cause is not to hurl with scorn, but to cast out male serving sin, to vanquish patriarchal poisons and point our country to mindfulness. As the film clearly shows, such an awareness would allow both women and men to thrive. As humans we are all part of our other, as inter-dynamic, inter-dependent beings.

As shocking as it is, women did not receive any rights at all until 1820. They were considered chattel, property of their fathers until marriage, on par with slaves. Women have their worth as a gender, but only by the definition of men.

According to the film, women are paid less than their male coworkers by a margin of 42%. Movie star Jennifer Lawrence is paid less than her male star peers by as much as 20%. In professional sports, men earn 13% more than women, in the same fields such as soccer and basketball.

In mainstream professions, most women earn 70 cents for every dollar a man works, for the exact same labor.

In 2009, as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed that prohibits pay discrimination based on sex. On the face of things, this appears just and right. However, it is not enforced. Under current Supreme Court rulings, a person has a right to file a discriminatory pay case only within 180 days from the time of being first hired. Because most people are unaware of being discriminated against during such a short window of time, the effectiveness of this amendment is absurd, only serving to protect corporations.

Discrimination in any form is notoriously difficult to prove. Even if plaintiffs do win, they are often permanently erased from their field.

On the level of motherhood, there is no national provision for paid family leave. Women face enforced job resignation, or they are left at the mercy of family members for assistance, along with Kafkaesque loops of paperwork.

Circumstances have not fared well either in academia or the military. Males in both disciplines are favored and if rape or violence is reported at all, the burden of proof is on the female. In many cases, the female victim is criminally charged.

Sex trafficking still thrives, in many cases centered in foster homes.

All of this adds up to the systematic subjugation and dehumanization of women in our society, while giving testosterone lip-service to equality.

Sadly, the American patriarchy is alive and in force.

Please see this film along with NOW and The Tropic and we can all become a human spring and an engine for action in the effort of fairness and mobility regardless of sex or definitions.

Write Ian at [email protected]

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]