Feminism has become a fundamentally flawed construct. The original purpose of the feminist movement was to instate equal legal rights for women, but as often happens with social movements, momentum has carried us far past equality to a place that is counterproductive to the authentic feminist spirit.
Any movement can easily change from a noble movement with well-defined actions with a purpose of achieving something good for the society to a selfish, confused, oppressive and poisonous movement to the society. A movement which causes a cosmic uproar and bashing when a boy puts on a shirt with the phrase ‘Boys will be Boy’! And on the other hand praises, supports and sponsors shirts with ‘Girls Run the World’ printed in them! I can’t wrap my head around this, so boys can’t be boys but girls can run the world? Where is the fight for equality in this, it beats the logic! Do not get me wrong, I believe Women deserve to be respected as much as men do. The problem with modern feminism is that it suggests that to be respected, women have to be more like men.
“Anything a man can do a woman can do better” is not exactly true. Can a woman/lady lift as much weight as 6-foot-3, 200-pound male partner in the gym? Personally, I cannot. Doing so will of course injure me, and claiming to be capable of such a feat would just be blatantly unreasonable. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t women out there who can, but higher levels of testosterone and increased muscle mass tailor men to lifting heavier weight than women typically would.
Denying our biological differences only sets us up for failure. There are evolutionary reasons for typically “feminine” or “masculine” characteristics, and recognizing this shouldn’t cause offence. Our differences come down to raising offspring. We can debate the finer points, but ultimately, in an evolutionary context, if there were only one set of gender characteristics within a mated pair, children would theoretically die of starvation. If both parents prioritized goal-oriented risk-taking, both might bite it hunting for food, leaving their children unprotected, whereas if both parents prioritized communication and emotional connectivity, perhaps neither would be willing to part with their children and risk their lives to hunt in the first place.
These may be generalities, but they’re real generalities, based on the history of how the human species raised their offspring. Because society is now structured differently from a hunting and gathering lifestyle, people of all gender identities are (ideally) free to pursue whatever goals and passions they desire without the necessity of following a particular child-rearing paradigm.
This is where the modern social media driven social justice feminism has gotten us. A movement which began to liberate women from exclusion has since morphed into a weapon of oppression not only for men but also women. When the first wave of feminism began, these women knew what they wanted. They went to the street to demand for it. In 1919 in the US, thousands of females matched to the Whitehouse demanding the right to vote in the next presidential elections. These movement paved the way for the fight for law promoting better health care and education. And the 60’s and 70’s these feminists protests led to changes which guaranteed, under the law, equal rights in the workplace, universities and colleges, healthcare and homes. Then in the 2000’s , things changed, feminist were now fighting against aggressive forces like the word “too”, scary sports mascots, and patriarchal cereal boxes!!!! You clearly tell how things have changed.
Whereas the previous waves of feminist fought for things that are measurable and evaluable, the social justice feminism are fighting for or against things that cannot be quantified or even clearly figured out, ‘feelings’.
There is this American writer, who talks about philosophical feminism and tribal feminism. Just to put you in context, philosophical feminism represents the following ideas; “Women have been oppressed throughout pretty much all of civilized human history, in pretty much every culture and society, and there’s a lot of baggage and residue of that oppression that carries on in various forms today. Despite their biological differences, men grow up in a culture of toxic masculinity that is not only unhealthy for women, but also unhealthy for men as well’’
He continues to say that the problem about feminism is that it is now more than philosophy or a group of beliefs. It is, now, also a political movement, a social identity, as well as a set of institutions.
A group of people brought together by an idea, often pretty awesome ideas. They quickly graduate to set of codes and action to make things done.
The writer says this about such groupings. “But the problem is, once you’ve got a group of people together, organized for a single purpose, achieving political leverage and adopting power, building institutions and careers for themselves, all sorts of bad human tendencies start to take over.
As humans, we are tribal by nature. Our natural default is to see ourselves as part of some group that’s struggling against some other group(s) at all times. And once we’re part of our little group, our little tribe, we adopt all sorts of biases and preferences. We construct belief systems that justify our group’s power and superiority. We create tests of whether other people are “true” and “pure” members of our group, and we either shame any “non-believers” into conformity or simply expel them from the tribe.’’
It is safe to say that once a philosophy has gone tribal, its beliefs no longer exist to serve some moral principle, but rather they exist to serve the promotion of the group. This is why you will see some feminist attacking others for not buying into their way of thinking even if the thinking is irrational and unscientific.
We haves some group of feminist who have formed political movement. I was surprised when some were advocating for abolishing of Father’s Day. They have shifted from helping women to oppressing anybody who stands against their ideas as irrational and unscientific.
The writer placed across some naked statistics; “In the past few decades, sexual violence has halved, and domestic violence has dropped by an astounding two-thirds. Women recently surpassed men in the workforce in the US and earn almost 60% of all bachelor’s degrees. And despite the constant drumming of 77 cents women earn on the dollar compared to men, when you factor in the fact that men work longer hours, more dangerous jobs, and retire later, the wage gap today is actually only something like 93 to 95 cents for every dollar a man earns.’’
Despite the above high number of graduates, female still record low in in Engineering and Computer science which pays best in the US. But what will a social media feminist do about it, start saying how female are not earning more, they are denied opportunity in these fields etc. Currently, anyone male or female is free to pursue whatever course he/she want! So if more women are showing more interest in non-technical course because is what they like what is the problem, instead of whining behind a keyboard, enroll for a technical course and lead by example.
Just to wrap it up with what George Carlin said, “I love individuals. I hate a group of people (I hate a group of people with a ‘common purpose’). Because pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they’re going to visit at 3am. So, I dislike and despise groups of people. But I love individuals.”
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