As men we should look to our daughters, our sisters, mothers and grandmothers and ask them whether or not they should make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men because [according to the White House](http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/equal-pay#top), that’s what they do, day in and day out despite the [Equal Pay Act of 1963](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/epa.cfm). The ratio is even lower for minority women.

As shared blood, we should ask ourselves why we allow this problem of inequality among genders to punish our kin in _2014_. It isn’t feminism anymore — yes, the scary “f-word.” In the future when we college kids are sending our daughters to school, to gain knowledge akin with the boys, can we really tell them they’re not worth the same as a man? Should we tell them it’s feminism to seek equal treatment? No, not in the slightest.

That’s because none of this makes sense. In a nation that strives for equality and justice, there is no reason why there should not be equal pay in the United States today. A push for an equal pay or rights amendment is a common-sense push.

Approximately 40 percent of mothers reported to [Pew Research Center](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/08/on-equal-pay-day-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-gender-pay-gap/) that they had taken “significant” time off from work in order to nurture a newborn. Roughly 30 percent reported quitting their jobs entirely. Well, I’ve got news for you boys: You wouldn’t be here if not for your mother. So, does it honestly make sense to punish potential mothers with a lesser salary? No. It is not right, just or patriotic.

Just think: Say Jack Doe found out John Doe was making nearly a whole quarter more per dollar than him just because Jack had the potential to take more vacation days. He would be outraged. In this case, society is more likely to justify this man’s claim because of his anatomy. So why not justify any woman’s claim? In the words of Joe Biden, this is just a bunch of malarkey.

British icon and United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson echoed such sentiments [last week in her address to the U.N.](http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/emma-watsons-speech-on-feminism-at-the-united-nations-is-amazing/story-fnixwvgh-1227066459159), raising the question: How can anyone change the world if it is only inviting half of the people to the table?

How absurd it would be if you work all of your life, rising through the ranks to become the chancellor of MU, then as a woman you make $77,000 a year instead of $100,000 the last guy made. Please help me find any logic might make that seem even a shade logical. It might take you a while because let me tell you, nothing can justify this.

Watson called for a breaking of the gender stereotypes now, so that we as a society might see instead a spectrum of genders tomorrow. Within that perspective, men and women could be free of prejudice. Instead, no matter who we are, we all could enjoy our freedoms and move forward towards a more perfect Union, as is always the goal.

So now, I will acknowledge that I haven’t even entertained the flip side of this argument. That is because its generators are imbeciles. They entertain a draconian ideology upheld by some right-wing gargoyles who are afraid to learn how to make their own damn sandwich. No, no, they aren’t capitalists; they’re greedy oligopolists.

While that might not be entirely true of them, I must say I love the women in my life, and it doesn’t sit too well with me that they might be treated unfairly simply for what they are, rather than who they are.

And to those who say we’ve done enough, literally the only thing we’ve done is make it legal for a woman to argue for her own equal pay in court, and that took 20 years to finally get done… in 2009. We can do better than the [Lilly Ledbetter Act](http://www.nwlc.org/resource/lilly-ledbetter-fair-pay-act-0).

For those still left struggling to understand this, see it less as feminism than for what it really is: basic human rights.