I think there's an illusion

often that's put out

across the culture

that we have gender equity in the U.S.

I would say we have a long way to go.

Pay equity, reproductive rights, et cetera.

There's been recent attempts to sort of roll those back,

and I think as women we need to work

on making sure that those are protected,

and, that we actually continue to make progress.

Unfortunately, we still live in a patriarchal culture.

As women make more progress

and have more choices, et cetera,

it threatens the foundation of patriarchy.

When you have a society where certain norms

are invisible or certain patterns are invisible,

like the patriarchal norm of, you know,

men being valued more than women,

and you overlay that with the rhetoric of ---

"Ok, now you all have your rights, so it's all good."

--- you end up in a situation

where even women buy into that sort of logic of,

"Oh, yes, I have all the choices in the world.

I can do whatever."

Until women sort of hit the reality, that wall of reality

when they actually find that they're not getting paid equally.

When we find that more and more women are living in poverty.

When they find that they can't access birth control as easily,

or access, you know, whatever sorts of

reproductive rights they need to access.

And so, a lot of scholars have written about

the ways in which patriarchy sometimes shape-shifts,

and sort of takes on the voice of really giving women choices,

while they're sort of taking them away.

So, I think that whenever we look at movements historically,

you often have this pattern of two steps forward, one step back.

I kind of think we're in the one step back moment right now,

but hopefully we'll take the two steps forward again.

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