Patricia Arquette, It’s Time to Admit: It’s a Great Time to Be a Girl

When Patricia Arquette won an Oscar for Boyhood, she added a  “women need equal pay” speech at the end of her acceptance speech.  Her comments caused this reaction from Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez:

But is Patricia even right?  Tim Wright has an excellent observation about gender in America today:

For over a generation we have been fighting for our girls…creating a world where they can be anything they want to be; a world where they are treated as equals to boys.

That hard work has paid off:

• Girls have now passed boys in almost every level of education
• More girls than boys take college prep classes in school
• More girls than boys take the SAT
• Girls get better grades than boys and graduate with high GPA’s
• More girls than boys are attending and graduating from college

Virtually every area once the domain of men has been opened up to women.  Compared to my grandmother’s and mother’s generations, our girls now live in a world of unprecedented opportunity.

It’s a great time to be a girl, but we keep acting like it’s not.  Again, Pastor Wright says it best:

The current “victim” example is the continued discussion about wage discrimination.  The headline says that women make $.77 for every $1.00 men make.  The Obama Administration has been touting that figure as of late to promote the passage of a wage discrimination bill.  It’s good for politics.  But it’s just not true.  That figure has been debunked by several sources.  The White House itself has gotten itself into some trouble touting that myth.

Not only is the myth not true, but young adult women are increasingly making more than young adult men.   (If they are graduating from college at higher rates than men, this makes sense!)

The point is this:  Our girls aren’t victims.

Patricia, instead of continuously complaining about the patriarchy, you should celebrate how far women have come, be thankful for the opportunities, and quit propagating the myth that society is somehow holding down females.

It’s time to get a new script.