Beyoncé Says Gender Equality Is A Myth
Beyoncé has been vocal about wanting gender equality in the past but now she is taking things one step further by calling the notion a myth in a new essay.
The 32-year-old singer decided to pen an essay as a guest writer on The Shriver Report, where she does not refer to herself as a performer but as Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. In the essay titled "Gender Equality Is A Myth," the famed entertainer revealed why people should stop believing in the idea that men and women are treated as equals.
"We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn't a reality yet," she wrote. "Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes."
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However, Beyoncé revealed how people can bring about change.
"But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more-commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender," she wrote. "Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect."
The mother of 2-year-old Blue Ivy Carter insisted that achieving gender equality begins with teaching children how to accept it.
"These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life," she wrote. "And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible."
Last year, Beyoncé revealed that she has visions of her daughter with husband and rapper Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter becoming the U.S. president one day.
"I'm telling my daughter every day, you know you can be president, you know it's possible," she said in a "Chime For Change" video. "I know she has no idea why I'm saying that, but at one year old, I'm like, you know you can be president."
After being questioned about being a feminist, the singer told British Vogue what she thought of the label.
"That word can be very extreme. But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality," Beyoncé told British Vogue last year. "Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I'm just a woman and I love being a woman."
