Are feminists anti men?
God no.
It’s legitimately
funny that a movement about women rights and women’s freedom gets so distorted
that it still ends up being all about men.
So here’s a crash course. Feminism in a nutshell means
wanting equal rights for men and women. It fights, amongst other things, for
the right to equal wages for women, fights for women to be accorded common
fundamental rights (not just on paper), fights for a women’s right to live, to
exercise freedom, to exist. It fights for things that have long being denied to
women because... they’re women.
Feminism is the radical notion that women are humans too,
just as much as every other man that walked this earth.
However in the past decade or so, public perception to a
large extent has demonized
feminism. The female feminist, anyway. Yes there’s
gender bias here too.
So while a woman feminist is seen as a man eating, man
hating, coloured hair, tattooed monster, the male feminist is seen as a highly sensitive,
conscientious human being who stands and cares for women’s rights.
However a large part of this perception is caused by
misrepresentation of feminism by feminists too.
And here’s where there is a problem with radical feminism.
So when
feminists say that women do a particular job better than men? They’re
wrong
Because the essence
of feminism is not to establish supremacy of women over men. It is to establish
that one, women can do any job as brilliantly as a man can and second, that
accordance of merit or acknowledgement of talent should not be tied to one’s
gender.
Girls can fight, boys can cry, women can go out and earn and
men can stay home and not hold a job.
Feminism is not about switching patriarchy with matriarchy,
it’s about establishing equality.
When feminists say it’s wrong for women to actively choose
to stay home and look after her children. They’re wrong.
Feminism, above everything else, celebrates the right of a
woman to chose for herself what she thinks is best. When you tell her that her
choice to stay home is wrong you’re doing the exact same thing that patriarchs
have done from the beginning of time while telling women that their place is in
the kitchen. This is what’s essentially alienating a large population from the
movement because of how non relatable it’s become.
Feminism is not about
replacing one rigid system of beliefs with another one.
It’s to break social constructs that chain people to
specific gender roles and reconstruct society in a way that your gender doesn’t
pre-decide your life choices.
Now, while I've validated a lot of anti-feminists concerns, here’s
some food for thought.
When people say that, everyone should have a feminist point
of view. They’re right.
It’s not about them taking away your choice to join the
movement. It simply means that if you don’t support feminism, you support
marginalization of women based purely on the fact that they’re women.
And that’s extremely problematic. Because if you’re a man
and you don’t support feminism, it’s simply because ignoring sexism is easy
when it works in your favour.
And if you’re a woman and you
think that because you have equal voting rights, you don’t need feminism, here’s
what you should give a thought to. Feminism got you to this point in time when
you do have these basic rights and are not frowned upon if you enter political
space. And that the fight is not just about basic rights, it will in fact only
end when the collective public conscience starts believing that women in fact
are not the weaker sex.
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