Congratulations! It's a baby girl.

From the moment that cute little bundle is placed in your arms, your life changes. Maybe not dramatically in the sense of instant upheavals ad such, and most likely not just in the ways that you expected. But in a thousand ways that you never envisaged, and probably never understand.

Though the major difference between having a male child versus female child in the world today, is in the biological function of their bodies in reproduction. This seems like an obvious enough fact, until we start to realize that there are so many other differences between a boy and girl child, as dictated by the society. Differences that we put there, covertly and overtly. Differences that may have been necessary due to geography and other circumstances at certain points in human history. And while human civilization no longer have most of the problems that seemingly justified the deferential treatment of women, we have somehow managed to hold on to the differences that we created.

The feminist ideology is experiencing some of its glory days now. With some men actually getting some form of punishment for sexual and physical abuse on women, and conversations actually happening surrounding equal pay, even if those conversations are still wearing boots of lead.

As it stands today, women and men all over the world are becoming even more aware of the intricacies of gender inequality and the need for special attention to be placed on the welfare of women. But what exactly does it mean to be born into the 21st century womanhood and essentially the territories of third wave feminism?

Below are some of the issues that third wave feminism is concerned with. Issues that though our predecessors faced, couldn’t deal with because they were you busy trying to avoid being burnt at a stake, committed mental facilities for daring to disagree with their husband or just grabbing the right to choose their political leaders. Issues that now form the basis of our struggle today, Which we hope would have ceased to exist or substantially stamped out by the exit of our generation.

1. Inequality in education: Women in major parts of Europe and America now have significantly more access to education and equal learning opportunity than they used to. But they remain the minority of the world population and we still have most women in countries all over the world still needing advocacy just for them to access education.

2. Unequal pay: Women are still paid significantly less than men for the same amount of work done, especially in America.

3. Trafficking and gender based violence: Women all over the world still run significantly better higher risk of being trafficked or experiencing domestic and gender based violence.

4. Rape: If America, a world superpower still records millions of untested rape kits, essentially letting rapists go unpunished en masse, need we mention that rape remains a serious problem all over the world?

5. Reproductive healthcare challenges: With birth control product targeted at women en masse, despite the fact that women can only reproduce once in a year and men can have an indefinite number of children in the same timeframe, it is immediately apparent that women are being unduly and unfairly targeted. This rings truer when we consider that most non barrier birth control products have severe side effects in a lot of women.

While beings woman can be a beautiful thing, these highlighted issues represent a fraction of the unsaid rhetorics when the doctor hands the baby over and says “Congratulations, it’s a girl”. The options are clear. We can choose to work towards a more egalitarian society for women, or we can say “congratulations” with tongue in cheek. Because we know that the life that awaits the bundle of joy in our arms is one that could be better...but for which we have refused to fight.