What's really sad is that so many young women between the ages of

“What’s really sad is that so many young women between the ages of 16 and 25 are ignorant and they already believe that women get the same pay as men. They don’t even really understand that equality hasn’t happened with the pay force.” These words of bell hooks, the great teacher of love and liberation, speak not merely to an injustice of economics, but to a blindness of the spirit. They are a lament for a generation lulled into complacency, believing that the struggle for gender equality has already been won when in truth, the walls still stand — invisible, but unbroken. Hers is the voice of the ancient seer, warning that ignorance, not malice, is often the slowest poison to freedom.

In every age, those who forget the cost of justice risk surrendering it. bell hooks reminds us that freedom unguarded fades quietly, without the sound of chains. The belief that equality has already been achieved is itself a kind of defeat, for it blinds the young to the continued disparities of power, opportunity, and recognition. The illusion of progress can be more dangerous than open oppression, for one cannot fight what one refuses to see. When young women believe the world is already fair, they lay down the tools of transformation, leaving the work unfinished, the promise unfulfilled.

Consider the story of Rosie the Riveter, the symbol of women’s labor during World War II. When men went to war, women took their places in factories, building planes and ships, proving that strength and skill were not bound by gender. Yet when peace returned, many of these same women were dismissed, told to return to kitchens and cradles, their wages cut, their efforts forgotten. The brief glimpse of equality was mistaken for permanence, and thus history repeated its cycle of erasure. The same warning echoes in hooks’ words: do not mistake progress for arrival. The gates may have opened, but the path is still steep.

bell hooks spoke not only of the pay gap, but of the gap in awareness — the distance between what is promised and what is lived. To her, the tragedy lies not just in inequality itself, but in how the young are taught to ignore it. The systems that shape education, media, and labor often whisper that the war is over, that feminism has done its work. But the numbers, the silence, the lived experiences of millions of women tell another story. The pay force, as she names it, remains a battlefield — subtle, bureaucratic, and enduring. It is fought not with banners but with budgets, not with swords but with salaries.

Yet within her lament lies also hope. For awareness, once awakened, spreads like dawn across the mountain peaks of ignorance. Hooks believed that education — true education — is the first act of resistance. To see clearly is to begin to act. When the young are taught to question, to look deeper than appearances, they inherit not despair but power. Knowledge transforms pain into purpose, and purpose transforms history itself. Thus, her words are both mourning and invitation: a call for awakening, for courage, for vision.

The lesson of this quote reaches far beyond gender alone. It speaks to all who inherit a world built on unfinished struggles. It teaches that the work of justice is never done, that each generation must reforge the promise its predecessors began. Equality is not a destination but a discipline — an eternal act of tending, like a garden that must be watered lest it wither. To assume it grows by itself is to let it die.

So let this wisdom be carried forward: never mistake comfort for completion. The young must not only inherit progress but understand it — how fragile it is, how easily it erodes. Let them question the systems that praise fairness yet pay unequally, that celebrate empowerment yet reward silence. And let every woman, every man, every soul remember the charge of bell hooks: see the truth, speak it, and act until justice is not a dream, but the very air humanity breathes.