In her down time, Beyonce took a minute out to write a new gender-equality essay for Maria Shriver’s publication, The Shriver Report. A brief excerpt was posted online where Bey voices her opinion about the lack of gender-equality that we have in the U.S. She points to examples such as wages and the balance of our economy as examples of where gender-equality effects the country as a whole.

We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.

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If women received pay equal to their male counterparts, the U.S. economy would produce $447.6 billion in additional income. Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.

We have a lot of work to do, but we can get there if we work together. Women are more than 50 percent of the population and more than 50 percent of voters. We must demand that we all receive 100 percent of the opportunities.

Read the full essay here.

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