You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

Hey! "There's no profit in raising girls" (Kingston 46)! Oh, by the way, do you have a 4.0 GPA and a well-rounded personality acceptable enough to get into Harvard?

Uhhh, 

Raise your hand if that was a connection even a little too much for 11AP students (y'all better raise them, even we can't make sense of this B.S.)

The thing is, this very hypocrisy is accurate. In cultures ranging from Asian, Latin American, and even Western, many girls put the same amount of effort into their education and lives just as much as the boys. Interestingly enough, these girls are more scrutinized for any thing they do than the boys that can put aside all judgments of each other for a game of soccer. So let's think about this logically. Are girls really unprofitable? In cultures where birthing boys is like birthing gold, who can provide that? A woman. But we can't contain the worth of a woman by her reproductive skills. Women can be seen beyond their maternal side of nurturing, empathetic, and kind qualities. We are that, but also much more. We are everything but "profitless". Just like Fredrick Douglas thought it useless to argue for anti-slavery; I find it futile to argue that woman are worthy humans. If you payed even the slightest attention to humanity's history, you wouldn't need my assistance to come to that conclusion. 

But one thing people need to understand is they can't play both sides. You can't call a woman useless and tell her to become president in the same breath. There's positive reinforcement, and this is negative reinforcement. Sure, many of the very women you call "profitless" will strive ten times harder to be successful, but that doesn't mean you can pat yourself on the back for motivating them. You lost that right when you presumed any human is profitable in the first place. You can't demean a woman and then demand success from her, sorry! Just like they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too.