"Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression." — Margaret Sanger
Gender expectations affect how women should be treated in many aspects and fields, and has long been a critical issue way before the Millennial generation. But nowadays, society is gradually understanding that women are on par with men. Whatever a man can do, there is always a woman who can do the same thing or even much better. With gender aside, men and women are both intellectual beings of the same ancestry.
Unlike the past centuries, there were a lot of discrimination towards women when it comes to many things. This kind of discrimination includes women being excluded to have jobs that are usually for men, unable to vote during elections, restricted to lead in groups which includes men, stereotyped to always be the ones left to take care of the household, and etc. Aside from that, the most striking of them all is that they were perceived to be inferior to men.
However, instead of accepting what women "were" towards the society, a lot of them proved that women could leave worthy legacies throughout history on their own. This includes Queen Elizabeth I, who led her English men to victory against the great Spanish armada; Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing; Marie Curie, who pioneered research on radioactivity; Saint Theresa of Calcutta, who was awarded a nobel peace prize for her charity works in Calcutta, India; the women who pushed legalization of women suffrage; and many others who did works that are worth the mentioning. Because of women, the world that we know as of today came to its existence.
Since time immemorial, women braved a world of discrimination and prejudice. Men in the past put themselves on pedestals forcing women to think of their inferiority in different areas of life. However, there is more to women than meets the eye and it has been long proven as they excell and strive in raising their rallying banners that represent the unheard voices of millions of women. The arrangement of our chromosomes is not a criterion of who gets to be on power and who should not be, as what an old phrase goes, "Behind every successful man, there is a strong woman."