WE NEED TO TALK!

There has never been a better time than now. And it has taken eons for us to reach where we are today. It required sacrifice, persistence, resistance, and perseverance of countless women and help of many sensible men to get enough people to accept the existence of Misogyny and understand the meaning of equality.

ABOUT:

Total Word Count: 11687 – This is a rough draft of 50-page research I am yet to publish.

This article has been written from both personal and Sociological point of view on Gender equality, Gender norms, Patriarchal setup, Feminism and the Sociological implication of the gender prerogative. It is an easy guide to Equality, Gender norms, Feminism and the implications of the current stereotypes of gender and sexuality.

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THIS ARTICLE COVERS :  

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IN NO COUNTRY ARE WOMEN IN EQUAL.

In fact, the World Economic Forum projects it will take 170 years to reach gender equality globally, and 158 years in North America. That means it will take five more generations for us to see gender equality – or my great, great, great, great, grandchildren.

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We need to talk about gender equality because we constantly find ourselves surrounded by questions regarding women empowerment and equality of sexes.

Katica Roy writes in her article for Forbes about Gender Equity & Gender Equality: “If gender equality is the end, gender equity is the means.

• Gender equality “does not mean that women and men will become the same, but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female.”
• Gender equity means fairness of treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs. This may include equal treatment or treatment that is different, but which is considered equivalent in terms of rights, benefits, obligations, and opportunities.

When we talk about opportunity, we’re talking about ensuring the opportunity is not limited simply on the basis of gender. We are talking about correcting for gender biases so that economic outcomes improve for all.

On the path to gender equality, we need gender equity. In order to have gender equity, we need to change the narrative and focus away from fixing women and put it squarely where it belongs – fixing the system. A system that has generated a leaky pipeline and suppressed economic opportunity at all levels – individual, family, company, and country.”
When we talk about Gender Equality, it is important for us to talk about gender prerogative and its Sociological implications.

• How people continue to use gender stereotypes that are the result of old societal: Biological, Sociological, Anthropological and Psychological imperatives.
• Why they continue to reinforcing them as an excuse for the Gender norms in modern society. (Some norms even dating back to the stone age and the times of early human hunter-gatherers.)
• Why they confuse the norms as something that is part of normal neurological behavior of the females & male humans.

This has huge sociological as well as economical, biological, psychological implications on Women and the modern world as a whole.

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And also ‘The H2O Argument regarding the movement – Feminism vs other labels’ because we constantly find ourselves surrounded by questions about equality labels and the existence of Feminism and its actual role.

Some of the frequently asked questions are :

• Why do we need to give more importance to the women and their respect, their rights & their issues? Do they want gender dominance?
• Who and what are these Feminists? Are feminists really ‘men-haters’ who believe in suppressing and taking the rights away from the male population?
• Why do we even need Feminism? Why are we using feminism we argue that we want equality, why not be an ‘Equalist‘ or a ‘Humanist‘ instead?

 

The topic of Feminism is important because Feminist campaigns are the main force behind major historical societal changes for women’s rights, particularly in the West. And it is surprising to see that even though the Movement gave power to the voices of women (especially in the west), most people including a lot of women have misconceptions, confusions, and lack of basic information about the Feminist movement. And often avoid being called Feminists and have so many questions regarding it and labels of Equality viz. ‘Equalist‘ ‘Humanist‘ etc.

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We must carefully read and let it sink in to truly understand the importance of this article. In order to successfully understand this guide about Gender Equality, first, we need to take off our rose-colored glasses, step aside from our preconceived notions and stereotypes. And step into the conversation as ‘Women and Men’ rather than ‘Women vs Men’.

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To learn the importance of the ‘Gender Equality & Gender Equity’ and how much is at stake: we need to first start the conversation about WOMEN.

“WE, THE WOMEN”

Women have been punished simply for being. Simply called crazy, hysterical just for being a normal flawed fellow human with hormones roller-coaster as a side-effect of the ability of human creation. This is an important subject to look at from the perspective of understanding how the men tried to find fault and figure out things wrong with women, who were otherwise supposed to be quiet, calm, submissive and with no sexual appetite. Rather than simply celebrating and ignoring it as a normal of being a human, a woman just like any men with emotions, aspirations, temper and sexual needs, everything was done to ensure that the ‘demon’ or the ‘craziness’ was diagnosed and controlled. And the after effects remain in this new society even after centuries & decades of ruling them out as Misogynistic dogma.

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HYSTERIA. Such an outdated simple term yet carries the proof & history of sexism and mistreatment of women. Hysteria was the first mental disorder attributed to women (and only women) — a catch-all for symptoms including, but by no means limited to nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts and various urges of the sexual variety. In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates (i.e., the founder of western medicine, in what may not go down as his greatest achievement) first coined the term “hysteria” — from “hystera,” or uterus — and also attributed its cause to abnormal movements of the womb in a woman’s body. 

It was once a common medical diagnosis for women. Even though it was categorized as a disease, hysteria’s symptoms were synonymous with normal functioning female sexuality. In extreme cases, the woman may have been forced to enter an insane asylum or to have undergone a surgical hysterectomy. As historian Rachel P. Maines points out in her book “The Technology of Orgasm,” the symptoms of “hysteria”—a catch-all diagnosis for a slew of vexing lady problems that dates back a couple millennia— Fainting, anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness weren’t the only hallmarks of female hysteria; certain core aspects of female sexuality, desire, and sexual frustration were also on the list. “excessive vaginal lubrication” and “erotic fantasy” were also both considered symptoms of the disease. Oh and —  “a tendency to cause trouble for others.”

It is beyond horrifying that this witch-hunt in the name of science started from 5th century BC until the American Psychiatric Association dropped the term hysteria in 1952. 5th CENTURY B.C. – 1952 — to finally admit that women weren’t sick, they were simply what women are supposed to be.

Let this sink in for a minute.

Sadly, we’re still feeling the impact of this highly-entrenched medical diagnosis today. It is no longer recognized by medical authorities as a medical disorder but still has lasting social implications. The “crazy” and “hysterical” labels are hard ones for women to completely shake. off

During my online research about Hysteria, I came across an article by Shalome Sine: On the sexist etimology of “hysteria,” and what academia did about it. She writes: “We as women still contend with this idea in current society. Women are typically considered less reasonable. When we’re upset, we get asked whether we are on our period. When we’re not upset, and instead of feeling emotionally level, we’re considered cold. This horrendous catch-22 leaves us with only one socially acceptable option: smiling and acting warmly toward those around us is the only attitude considered appropriate for us. For women, reasonableness is simply not a social expectation. Smiles are.” She later continues: “I also think this is a fantastic example of the way that sexism is detrimental to both genders. Men could not be diagnosed with hysteria because they did not have wombs. Besides, they were supposed to be too strong for these ‘womanly’ diseases. In turn, they could not (or would not) be treated for their psychological distress.”

• Weakness/unreasonableness → Hysteria →woman (because she has a uterus)
• Strength/reasonableness ≠ Hysteria →man

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First, it was the term ‘hysteria’ that was used to insult a woman’s emotional intelligence and brush off her concerns and issues. Today, it is ‘paranoia’. Only the face of misogyny has changed, it has taken the shape of a much casual and classy facade. However, the deep-rooted sexism, stereotypes, and rape culture continue because sexism and rape culture are woven through the language we speak.

THE TRUTH IS: Even today the society is unable to accept the fact that women have a voice and can raise it too.

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• If there’s only one woman in your candidate pool, there’s statistically no chance she’ll get the job
• Men are promoted at 30% higher rates than women during their early career stages
• 90% of women leave the workforce because of other workplace problems (rather than having a child)
• Women are paid 79 cents on the dollar of their male colleagues (that drops drastically to 39 cents for the top 2% of wage earners in the U.S.)
• More men named John run FTSE 100 companies than women
• In a study of 21,980 firms from 91 countries, just over 50% of firms didn’t have any female executives (only 11% of firms had all female executives)
• 50% of women in STEM fields will eventually leave because of hostile work environments
• In addition to women attaining 57% of bachelor degrees and above in 2015, they are also the majority of university students in nearly 100 countries.

Women are educated and extremely talented, but they are not making it up the talent pipeline. Why not? Gender bias is causing a leaky pipeline.

• Have we ever thought about why despite decades of medical and scientific advancement we have yet to invent oral contraceptives that have less or no side-effect?
• Have we ever thought why the Govt. in countries that call themselves economically better spend less attention and almost zero funds towards providing HPV vaccinations to prevent cervical cancer for free or for a nominal charge. Why few countries medical budget and insurance covers Viagra pills and not sanitary products and contraceptives for women?
• Have we ever thought why even after decades there is no preventive or effective medication for UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) while the majority of the women experience it at least a few time in their life? When we know that it causes extreme pain and discomfort, and can even cause infertility in women or kidney failure!
• Why the sanitary products are taxed as luxury items when menstruation is part of women’s lives and these products are basic medical necessities, lack of which causes serious infections and major health issues?
• Why are we less aware of female anatomy and the fact that most women who suffer from PCOS and major hormone imbalances require contraceptives not to prevent conceiving babies, but for hormonal balance and bearable menstrual cycle?

We never stop and wonder why there is a lack of attention and awareness about important social and medical struggles of women. We never wonder why most of the times even Doctors do not take their concerns or pain seriously, simply telling them that they are imagining it. They are misdiagnosed frequently and sent away home.

• When women’s reproductive rights & contraceptive rights are discussed & taken away from them even though it is their body, their choice.
• When women’s are treated like children who can’t make their own choices & health decisions.
• When the men sitting in their offices give more funds & energy to a medical issue of erectile dysfunction rather than taking care of laws to take care of women’s reproductive health & mental well being.
• When the men in lab coats ‘research’ and come to a conclusion that women’s ‘G-spot’ doesn’t exist, that women can’t orgasm or ‘ejaculate’ rather than saving those funds for other researches & simply coming to women and ask about their bodies…

This is when we know that we need to talk about it. We need to stand up and shout for everyone to hear that it needs to stop. We need to teach our kids to ensure that it isn’t repeated.

• Women face challenges, discrimination & looked down as simply being less than a man. Not equal to. 
• In a society where a man is bossy, he is called a Tough Leader but if a woman is she is called a ‘Nasty Bitch’.  
• If she talks about a topic or subject men automatically assume that they have more knowledge than her, they tend to talk over her, interrupt her and if she proceeds to tell them that she knows it better (or has a degree or job in it) she is called ‘arrogant’.
• A woman’s moral values are calculated by her clothes & the timings of the clock.
• A woman has to do the double amount of work to prove herself in the workplace, to be taken seriously & fights sexism, misogyny & harassment at the workplace at the same time.
• Every time a woman gets an appraisal or a promotion people around her question her ability & assume that it’s because of her looks.
• When a woman is assaulted or raped people question her clothes, the timing she was outside & her truth.

Women have walked alongside men since the time of human existence and yet there is such lack of awareness and basic knowledge about a woman, her anatomy, her issues in the society, that it should infuriate people.

The rules are simple: Mutual respect. Mutual dignity. Consensual affection. Personal space. Setting up boundaries, protecting them from others & ensuring that we do not violate the boundaries of others.

“NOT ALL MEN…”

Every time women attempt to raise an issue that involves male perpetrator, or talk about men in terms of Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence issue, or even when being called out for inappropriate behavior, we start seeing men coming up with the “Not all men” defense. As if it solves the gender-based crimes in any way! Which it does not. If anything it gives an impression that the human male’s gendered image is more important to him than the real issues women face in the hands of these perpetrators.

No one actually thinks all men.
Just too many men.

Just enough men to be afraid.
Just enough men that all women have experienced it.
Just enough to make it a social problem not a personal one.

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• Every time an infant or minor is raped or assaulted rather than collective outrage towards the rape culture there are men who start saying “Not all Men”
• Every time a woman stands up for herself & the discrimination, people call her hysterical, ask if she is on her periods “are you hormonal/PMSing? That time of the month huh?” , call her names & call the poor condition of women a myth.
• Every time a woman speaks up and makes a logical argument they aren’t treated with a counter logic or an intelligent discussion but rather personal remarks are thrown at her ‘comments on her looks, her character’. If they do not agree to a woman they proceed to emotionally violate her. “I don’t agree with you so I do not approve of your existence. Bad woman. You are ugly anyway!”
• Every time a woman talks about women empowerment in a developed economical setting she is asked to shut up because “there are countries where women have it bad”. Every time a woman talks about women empowerment in a developing/underdeveloped economical setting she is asked to shut up because “Even developed countries are no better” & that “there are countries that women have it worse.” 

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To counter an issue by arguing that there are other more important issues to talk about does not make that issue less important.

There are always going to be places where women have it worse till we do not change our prerogatives & attitude towards even the issues that look ‘not important enough’ but are important for women around us.

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A man gives the reason to respect women or understand their issues by giving statements like“I have a sister, so women empowerment is important for me” or “As a father of two little girls, I have realized how important women empowerment is and how terrible toxic masculinity is” or simply, “Now I understand what a misogynist or sexist I was in my youth.” Well, when men need to have an important woman, or women in their life as a sister, daughter, etc to finally realize that women are actual human beings is when we need to get up and scream at the top of our lungs that…we are raising our boys wrong.

WE ARE RAISING OUR BOYS WRONG

By enforcing the idea that a woman is a bond or a relationship, dehumanizes her. Leaving her only as important as the men in her life think she is.

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Men DO NOT need to have a mother, daughter, sister, wife or any friend to understand that women need to be treated with dignity and respect. All men need to know that women too, just like you are humans. And just like men, women want to enjoy equality and respect. Just like men, women feel pain and hurt.

Because you do not need to have a biological or emotional bond with a woman to know that women are humans too and their rights are important, or that they are suffering because of patriarchy! Isn’t compassion a human trait?

WOMEN ARE HUMANS FIRST, AND THE OTHER BONDS COME SECOND

• Related article about rape culture –

Read: Boys will be…

 

WOMEN’S’ OBJECTIFICATION & PREDATORY MISOGYNY

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT INCELS?

“Women haven’t needed to evolve past their primitive nature because they get everything served on a plate by simps. […] It’s my observation that men are more capable and evolved.”

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PREDATORY MISOGYNY:

“I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you.” — Elliot Roger, the so-called ‘Incel Messiah’. He is dead but his ideas live on: they are shared every day on the internet. “For the last 8 years of my life ever since I hit puberty, I have been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires. All because girls have never been attracted to me. […] Humanity is a disgusting, wretched, depraved species. If I had it in my power, I would stop at nothing to reduce every single one of you to mountains of skull and rivers of blood. […] You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It’s an injustice, a crime because I don’t know what you don’t see in me. I am the perfect guy.”

In 2014, hours after filming this video, he perpetrated the first ‘Incel’ attack in history: Roger killed 6 people and wounded 14 more in Isla Vista (California). Over the years, three more ‘Incel’ attacks would be committed: In 2015 in Oregon (US) and the recent van attack in Toronto (Canada) on April 2018.

This was what the Toronto killer posted on his Facebook minutes before the attack — “The ‘Incel rebellion’ has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!” The van attack killed 10 people.

A few days ago, on November 4^th, 2018 there was another Incel: Scott Beierle shot and killed two women, and injured 4 other women and a man at a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida. Beierle was a self –proclaimed misogynist who railed against women and people of color. And he used to post misogynistic and racist videos and statements.

It is also interesting to note that the Incel community have previously raged against women wearing yoga pants!

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But who exactly are the ‘Incel’?

INCELS. (a portmanteau of “involuntary” and “celibacy”), The acronym stands for ‘Involuntarily Celibate’, in other words: They don’t have sexual intercourse, even though they want it and pursue it. The ‘Incel’ has developed an extensive theory about why women don’t want to have sex with them.  These are members of an online subculture who define themselves as being unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as Inceldom. Self-identified Incels are almost exclusively male and mostly heterosexual. What Incels want is extremely limited and specific: They want to be able to have sex on demand with young, beautiful women. And they don’t think of women as an independent autonomous intelligent sentient human being, but simply a vessel for male sexual gratification. Frankly, they don’t think of women as human at all, let alone equal beings.

Some of the theories by Incels posted on the internet and some important characteristics of Incels are:

• In one of their theory ‘Why women are the embodiment of evil’ — “Bitches are nothing but born psycho (paths). They are pure and utter evil, who have no thoughts and feelings and should be seen as malevolent creatures they truly are.”
• They have their own immutable certainties: E.g. ‘All women are sluts’ — “Because every bitch out there, regardless of their race, religion, virginity status, is a slut; it’s in their very nature to be such. Women haven’t needed to evolve past their primitive nature because they get everything served on a plate by simps. […] It’s my observation that men are more capable and evolved.”
• Their own metaphors: “We’re essentially orangutans going extinct because our forest got cut down. Nature doesn’t care. Women don’t care. Chad doesn’t care. The loggers don’t care. Greenpeace doesn’t exist in this world.”
• Their own slangs — ‘Chads’, ‘Staceys’, ‘Black Pill’, ‘Blue Pill’, ‘Femoids’, ‘Simps’, ‘Normies’, ‘Fakecels’, ‘White Knights’,
• They take comfort and enjoy ‘playing’ with women. One of their manual includes ‘Tips on how to frighten little girls for ‘harmless psychological fun’ — “The feeling when you follow a girl and she notices you, and she tries to lose you or picks up the pace. That is kind of a good feeling. You become important to her. You are no longer some random insignificant face in the crowd […] they become paranoid. I recommend you lonely Incels try it sometime. Just to make her afraid. If you know your limits and don’t actually harass – let alone rape- that girl, it should be harmless psychological fun.” — This is a textbook case of harassment where the predator carefully constructs an environment for the unaware victim to make her feel scared for her safety and life, just for emotional and sexual gratification.
• “Society has become a place for worship of females and it’s so fucking wrong, they’re not Gods they are just a fucking cum-dumpster,” a typical rant on an incel message board reads.

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Jia Tolentino in her article ‘The rage of the Incels‘ in newyorker.com rightly pointed out that —  “Incels aren’t really looking for sex. They’re looking for absolute male supremacy.

Yes, It is a horrible thing to feel unwanted—invisible, inadequate, ineligible for the things that any person might hope for. But to think that you are entitled to have sex, that you own the sex that you crave but seem to never get is a product of female evilness, rather than — waiting for the right person who would want you the way you are — or evaluating your personal behavior that  rubbing off women in a negative way, enough to stay away from you. If you can’t get laid, blame women, hate them and create cult and conspiracy theories around women as ‘bitches’, ‘femoids: A snarl word for women, generally used by incels, to refer to women especially in the context of sexual objectification. A combination of female and humanoid implying a “less than human” status.”

Basically, treating women like they are dirt because you think you are being ignored is an example of entitlement. But it gets scarier.

These men bond by their disgust and violent hatred for society and especially women. And this hatred has caused not only psychological terrors on women, an increase in predatory misogyny and rape culture, but also deadly attacks which are the first cases of ‘MISOGYNIST-TERRORISM.  The idea that this misogyny is the real root of their failures with women does not appear to have occurred to them. They are even misandrist enough to assume that men who treat women more respectfully are “white-knighting,” putting on a façade of chivalry.

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The sexual revolution urged women to seek liberation. The self-esteem movement taught women that they were valuable beyond what convention might dictate. Because of cultural changes and more women being self-aware and doing better economically, have created a situation in which many men who hate women do not have the access to women’s bodies that they would have had in an earlier era. And instead, more women are being attacked and hated for taking autonomy of their own body and trying to re-write the age-old misogynistic ‘female subjugation’ narrative.

We can’t redistribute women’s bodies as if they are natural resources; they are the bodies they live in. A woman’s body isn’t for male entitlement and consumption.

It is solely for the woman herself. 

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MEN WHO FEEL ENTITLED TO WOMEN ARE DANGEROUS

The very idea of ‘INCEL’ is based on entitlement. That they are entitled to sex from women. And since they can’t get laid, they call for a witch hunt against all women. A lot of women, actually voluntarily or involuntarily stay celibate. A non-availability of sex doesn’t make women feel entitled to sex. Nor do they go to lengths of forming perverse forums and commit mass murders.

Women have heard enough of ‘misogyny don’t exist’ ‘gender discrimination doesn’t exist’ that today ‘women have more rights than men’ that because of women finally fighting to achieve equality and empowerment, men are suffering. We have all heard people calling Feminism evil. About how it has no place in the real world.

We have all known people like this some point in our lives, and why? Because a lot of men feel entitled, and blaming women for men’s violent outburst and excusing men’s inability to handle rejection as another excuse to blame women, keeps us for making this world better and safer for women to live in. Because for women, saying “No” to the advances of most men can cost her —  her life and that of her loved ones sometimes, being hurt in domestic violence, or rape or gunned down, or acid attack, etc. Women every day pay the price of standing up to themselves and saying “NO“.

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 — Women have been so afraid to say ‘No’ to men because we all know that for most men it’s not just simple rejection, you can lose your life because you said no.

This has to stop.

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This is what happens when you grow up thinking women as sub-human…you actually start believing it. So much so that you go to lengths to deliberately hurt them, calling their request for personal space and choice as their inability to feel any emotion.

FALSE SCIENTIFIC IMPERATIVES TO BACK UP MISOGYNY — THE BIZARRE CASE OF MALE GENDER SUPERIORITY

Men who appear to be intellectuals superficially are dangerous because they genuinely believe that their argument is correct and use pseudo-science to try to back it up. When in reality they have ingrained and entrenched misogynistic and patriarchal thinking and a feeling of male superiority — which they would never publicly or personally self- identity or agree. They are also dangerous because of predatory men or those who are misogynist or those who believe that male species are not to be held morally responsible…use these arguments as backing to their sexist behavior. We need to stop giving up spaces to people who act as false-intellectuals and attempt to use pseudo-science imperatives to make excuses for their misogyny and attempt to put women in their place.

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Men who say that they are entitled to women are dangerous. Those who don’t believe in holding men responsible and instead believe in ‘female subjugation and stripping women the control of their own body’ on women are the textbook case of what Misogyny and what ‘Male Superiority’ looks like. This is how the Victorian Era looked too! Men like Jordan Peterson who are spreading back the notion of ‘enforced monogamy’ and others like him are dangerous because it is easy to believe them and to get influenced because they sound intellectual & smart.  And they are…in warping facts & science! They only use their personna and education to advance their narrative to make excuse for their sexism bias.

It is no different than from the pseudo-race-superiority arguments of the Nazis. And interestingly even though Nazis went on to slaughter millions of innocents. There were and still are people who still believe in their race-superiority narrative.

Women, on the other hand, have been systematically oppressed since eons, to the point a vast number of them actually believe they are inferior to men! And since eons men have controlled the entire narrative — written, verbal and psychological. From religious books to basic literature everything has been controlled and narrated by men from their POV, and per their convenience. Women steadily continue to suffer and die as a direct result of the carefully and smartly planned patriarchal setup and covert misogyny.

“ENFORCED MONOGAMY” – men’s entitlement to women’s sexual attention – combined with rage over rejection – is deadly.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMPLICATION OF THE GENDER PREROGATIVE

The argument of enforcing monogamy on women as a solution to decrease aggressiveness of male is not only wrong since they enforce the notion of victim-blaming — majority of people somehow find a way to drag women as part of the problem…no matter how tragic or serious an issue is  — but also has no validity biologically & morally. Because this reinforces the notion that women need to be controlled – sexually and socially, but men, on the other hand, don’t need these boundaries!  How convenient!!

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The truth is —

BIOLOGICALLY: Apart from being the one to carry and produce new ones, the female species have the imperative to mate with males who are not only mentally stable, physically stronger but also genetically better. To do so no species (including our early human ancestors) were monogamous. 

SOCIOLOGICALLY: The monogamous structure started to be followed between male and female species after the individual groups started to turn into ‘societies’ and emotional imperative started to override the biological one, in order to bond and trust better, to ensure the groups stayed together and safety, even after the females had already reproduced. 

HUMANELY & MORALLY: It is unfair to hold only female responsible to uphold the morality of a family or a society, in order for the society to continue. Both men and females hold equal responsibility to stay morally fair. 

— And to assume that ‘enforced monogamy’ has any ingrained and entrenched genetically  biological imperative of human females as a necessary requirement is both incorrect and promotes the misogynist idea that women are not humane enough and worthy to have the right to live a life apart from reproducing, and that  the autonomy of their body belongs to men instead.

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“You cannot have a real conversation with people who don’t believe in facts. It doesn’t work, they don’t want to listen. They make up things to fit their world view. Legit, pull things from thin air and call it a fact. It’s fact because they believe it to be. It doesn’t matter how much I talk or what evidence I can show. They will still be “right because they know. You will be seen and treated as less if you look or believe anything different.” — (a wonderful comment on a video about Racism and Alt-Right by this person: Victorya Ann

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Just because someone is a man (or a woman for that matter), they aren’t entitled to anything sexual. People get to choose and decide if they are interested. We need to move away from this feeling and behavior of entitlement. We can do better.

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Both men & women are humans. They both have the same biological imperative to produce new life with better genes so that future generations can survive, and they both have the social imperative to protect the species as a whole for those who already exist. Both of them need to be held with equal moral standards. One shouldn’t just get a pass from morality just because they happen to be men. We are no longer hunter-gatherers or cavemen, that we can give toxic masculinity a pass. Everyone is entitled to freedom, happiness, and dignity.

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Men have the seed for new lives, but it is the women who grow it inside of them as part of their own body, carries them and then further nourishes them after birth. Every species owes their females much more respect and appreciation, and not treat them as vessels of sexual gratification & childbirth.

It is the women who have created, carried, and literally given birth to all of humankind. Each one of them.

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We are the top of the food chain because we hold the key to compassion & empathy. We are humane. The more we give an excuse of toxic male behavior as – biology- and entitlement, the more the society shall disintegrate. Because after thousands of years, women are finally reclaiming the rightful place that they were stripped off of.

How hard is it to teach our children to accept rejection with dignity? To live with humility and respect for each other!

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It is time to raise our boys right. Let’s teach them that it is not okay to feel entitled to a woman’s affection. — And raise our girls better too. Let’s teach them it is okay to say ‘NO’.

Gender norms and stereotypes are hurting our society

Because we are setting up our children for failure. We need to let go of it and let both male and females decide what they want to be. This is the only way for our society to reach its full potential.

“DON’T BE A BITCH. SAY THANK YOU AND SMILE.”

We grow up being told to ‘smile’, being told to take ‘compliments’. We grow up being catcalled and stalked. We grow up passing men in the street who discuss obscenely about our body parts & what they want to do to it, loud enough for us to hear and being disgusted, offended and frightened for our safety.  They intend for us to hear & they do not care. We are simply cattle sexual playthings or pets. Our personal space & dignity constantly violated and when we stand up for ourselves, against the harassment we are called a Bitch, a snowflake. “Grow up, and learn to take compliments. Don’t be a bitch about it. Or your life will be harder if you act like this.”

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THE INFANTILIZATION OF WOMEN. An incredible phenomenon by which our society systemically equates femininity with things like vulnerability, submission, uncertainty, and childhood. Women are postured in childish ways; bent knees, blank stares, holding themselves, putting their hands in their mouths, in what you might call “submissive” stances to their surroundings, while men are often depicted standing straight up, in control, and adult-like (for more examples of this, open a magazine). Also, calling grown women ‘girls’ is sexist. And so is asking grown women to ‘smile’ and expect their ‘Thank You’.

We teach our women to get approval. Learn to get respect in society. To keep our mouths, dresses, ‘virginity’ and lives in check. To ensure we aren’t labeled ‘defectives’ or ‘expired’. When we should be giving equal energy to teach our men to let women be. To teach men to respect women as a human, not an object or a possession that requires perfection or has an expiration.

If women smile less they are called arrogant. If they smile more they are labelled immoral. There is no middle ground for women. That maybe they are just an ordinary imperfect human who needs to be treated with dignity & their personal space respected, is something no one pauses to think.

We don’t let women behave like men or men behave like women if they want to. We don’t strive to behave more humane instead? What is so wrong in being a woman!

Every time you come across women ‘preference’ law that is put in place to protect them from crimes like rape, assault, domestic violence, etc and your argument is “but there are so many false cases filed by women, laws being misused by them that men are the one who are suffering.” — it means that because we still have people with this thought process is the reason why we need Feminism.

“Equal Rights does not mean fewer rights for you, as a man. It’s not a pie.”

“HEY! BUT ALL WOMEN…”

Let me tell you something: “I have faced a lifetime of harassment from men, even when I was a child & even more when I am an adult. Moreover, there are innumerable instances where I have declined advances of men who then proceed to call me names because they are too fragile to handle rejection. And the list goes on. It has come to a point that today I do not even remember the number of men who have inappropriately tried to violate my personal space & disrespected me.” 

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So I will ask you: Isn’t the most logical thing for me is to put the entire male species into the category of ‘ALL MEN ARE — dangerous animals, who lack self-control. That they are too fragile to handle rejection and have no concept of consent. Each one either a rapist or a potential one.’?

No, right? I know what you would say: ‘Not all men’. (A statement that men give every time there is an outrage towards men on rape, abuse and other violent crimes against women.) But run at the collective ‘But all women’.

If you drown in a pond you are left with a phobia of water and that is normal for people to understand. Then why women being always cautious and wary of men – is a hard concept to grasp? And shouldn’t that be understood and respected, considering all things?

Irrespective of our wariness against men, women do not put everyone in a box & label them as evil. That is what maturity means. This world is lucky that our female species don’t seek revenge for the atrocities on our kind. Women do not put everyone in a box and label them as evil. That is how women live in this world ~ One day at a time.

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Every woman experiences some form of sexual harassment or abuse in their lifetime.

Yet women everywhere give mankind a chance when they get up every day and go in the world. They hold the hope that each man they come across will be better than the last one. 

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And the number of women who misuse the efforts of empowerment that we give them is a minority – like a bucket of water in a huge pond. Not all women are good. Women after all like men are only human: flawed and imperfect. Not all women are necessarily good humans, but all suffer from misogyny. And for some men to constantly use ‘whataboutism‘ is disrespectful towards every woman who gets up every day, despite bad experiences in the past, and still chose not to put all men in a box with ‘All Men

We need to understand that the Law Enforcement and judicial system is there for a reason.

It is simple : Hold people equally accountable, if they break the law. Have a good law enforcement system and punish people regardless of gender. Feminism is holding people accountable for their actions, regardless of gender. That women can be domestic violence perpetrators, or rapists or murderers, or simply bad human. So people who fight for equality never say ‘All Men’ or ‘No Woman is Evil’ .

So it shouldn’t be hard for people to comprehend that there is a social stigma against women. That these laws are here to fill a long-existing gap that has been in favor of men for a long time. In a lot of countries, marital rape is still legal. And, in some countries, rape survivors are imprisoned and punished too. In a lot of societies, the first thing that people think of when rape happens — “Who will marry her” rather than — “Is she okay“.

These young girls and women suffer a lifetime of punishment and stigma because of someone else’s crime against them. While the spotlight never stays on the rapists for long. And yet we cry wolf when a country moves in a positive direction and brings better laws to empower women! These laws are not a special favor towards women, instead, they have been long overdue.

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Majority of women suffer in our society, suffer the unthinkable and keep quiet because we make them feel ashamed for being a victim/survivor and more because we question their truth. We use abuse erasure & victim blame instead.

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“THE PATRIARCHY HAS FAILED THE MEN…TOO.”

Patriarchy also hurts the male population as much by binding them in a perceived ‘masculinity’ while they need to constantly prove it or be ashamed. That without the societal idea of ‘masculinity’ a male is less of a human…’women like, feminine’. A society where anything related to the female gender is looked upon as a defect, a weakness.

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“For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong, there is a boy tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable. For every boy who is burdened with the constant expectation of knowing everything, there is a girl tired of people not trusting her intelligence. For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive, there is a boy who fears to be gentle, to weep. For every boy for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity, there is a girl who is called unfeminine when she competes. For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive, there is a boy who fears to be gentle, to weep. For every boy for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity, there is a girl who is called unfeminine when she competes. For every girl who throws out her E-Z-Bake oven, there is a boy who wishes to find one. For every boy struggling not to let advertising dictate his desires, there is a girl facing the ad industry’s attacks on her self-esteem. For every girl who takes a step toward her liberation, there is a boy who finds the way to freedom a little easier.”  — Nancy R. Smith

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• TOXIC MASCULINITY AND MENTAL HEALTH: More men lose their life to suicide than women. More men attempt to end their life. Because since a long time we have taught men that “Real men don’t cry”

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There’s no denying that the patriarchy is set up to benefit men. However, gender norms are just as rigid for men as they are for women, and the consequences can be deadly. Some have argued that the high rate of completed suicide for men could be traced to the cult of masculinity, which causes men to be less likely to seek help for emotional problems

We haven’t taught men to deal with their emotions. That it is okay to feel. And so more men are ashamed to get help, to talk to someone about their emotions. They don’t know how to handle those emotions, and in turn, try to suppress them. What would you do if you are overwhelmed with emotions, that you have no idea how to deal with? Do your tears make you less of a man? No. but we never tell them.

More men end up channeling those emotions and turning it into anger. Because as a society we have taught them anger is being tough. As a society, we set men for failure from the moment they are born because we enforce the idea of toxic masculinity, a false idea of ‘manliness’ into them. We turn them into angry men who destroy toys and then girls, rather them teaching to control and channel their emotions into positive things like women. We put pressure on men to succeed, we place a preconceived notion that men can’t want to be a stay at home dad and take care of children without worrying about bills, because we enforce the notion that you are not man enough to take care of your family as any woman would. We pressure them into working in jobs that make them unhappy and taking a break if they are overwhelmed.

Furthermore, research has shown that fear of being seen as “weak” is so deeply ingrained that they drastically overcompensate when they feel threatened. Male overcompensation is typically played for laughs, but in reality, it can have terrible consequences. As the authors of the study point out, men who don’t see themselves as masculine are more likely to harass and act aggressively toward women and gay men.

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• SEXUAL ASSAULT: Although statistics show that men make up anywhere from 10 to 38 percent of sexual assault victims, sexual assault is often seen as something that happens to women, by men. Even when people do admit that male rape occurs, it’s often played for laughs: Prison rape jokes, congratulating him on getting “laid,” etc. The minimization and outright dismissal of male sexual assault don’t exactly encourage men to come forward after an incident, and it can seriously impede recovery.

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We constantly tell men that if a woman initiates sexual advances, they have to continue it. That saying “no” would make them ‘less of a man’. That a man has to be sexually responding, and that it’s not harassment. That they have to feel good. That it’s okay for a woman to beat a man, and that if they don’t hit back they are ‘less of a man” instead of applauding these male victims of domestic violence for showing restraint instead. That it is okay if a woman is an abuser, we make the male victims feel ashamed to admit that they are being abused, we make them feel that they need to stay quiet because of fear of getting mocked, that since they are ‘men’ — real men are tough. And we have male enablers, part of the patriarchy, who constantly reinforce these notions into fellow men.

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When we do not acknowledge a male rape victim/survivor and instead joke that he must have enjoyed being raped by a woman because ‘men don’t get raped’ or ‘he had an erection‘. When we question his ‘heterosexuality‘if the rapist is a man. When we talk about “why we never ever had a sexy teacher” when we come across incidences of female teachers abusing male students. When we come across a male victim/survivor of Domestic Violence & call him ‘not man enough’ or weak.

We make men the victim of rape culture too.

“Men don’t get raped” “Real men don’t cry” “Men don’t wear pink” “Anything stereotypical to femininity is dirty” — we are raising our boys wrong. We are reinforcing the notion that anything remotely ‘vulnerable’ is feminine. And that being feminine is dirty, even if it means bottling up your emotions. “Act like a Man”

• Reinforcing the idea into our children that being anything near stereotypical ‘feminine’ is being ‘weak’ 
• Reinforcing the idea into our children that being anything near stereotypical ‘masculine’ is being tough & macho.

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• SEXUAL AGGRESSION: While women are slut-shamed at every opportunity, men are encouraged to bang everyone in sight, often whether that person is consenting or not. In fact, if men don’t express voracious sexual appetites at all times, they’re belittled for not being “manly” enough. The stereotype of male sexual aggressors is so entrenched that for decades, scientific research worked on the assumption that men are more sexual beings than women, and it’s only recently that this narrative has come into question.

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• DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Similarly to sexual assault, domestic violence is assumed to be a female concern. While women do make up the majority of domestic violence victims, domestic abuse can and does happen to men as well. However, the culture of toxic masculinity is so strong that some men may not even realize they’re being abused because they aren’t used to violence being discussed in terms of female-on-male.

We have failed our girls, and we are failing our boys too. This is patriarchy. And it needs to be destroyed.

Claire Warner correctly pointed out that in her article: 6 Ways The Patriarchy Is Harmful To Men, Because Feminism Isn’t Just For Women –

“As much as men may benefit from patriarchal societies on the surface, it’s clear that the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. Fortunately, there’s a movement dedicated to dismantling the patriarchy: Feminism. And if we work together, perhaps we’ll find ourselves in a society that doesn’t discourage men from showing emotion or shame women for doing so.”

FEMINISM

Feminist (n): A person who believes in social, political, economic equality of sexes.

Feminism is not a dirty word that you are scared to use for yourself or a word that you throw it at people as an insult for them because they believe in equality. Feminism isn’t anti-male, unlike the preconceived notion of some people because of its prefix ‘Fem’. It is to support women, not to pull down men. This movement is the reason in most of the places in the world women have an individual voice.

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Before you jump on the bandwagon of the argumentative labels of ‘pseudo-feminist, feminazi, men hater’ and so one, let me stop you and make my most favorite statement of all times: “I can call myself a Potato. But calling myself a potato doesn’t make me one.”

Now, I love potatoes. But that doesn’t mean that I label myself one out of my personal disgust for eggplants (nasty vegetable by the way). Or simply become a potato because it’s chic & popular to be a potato. I can go on and on about how I believe the potato ideology but if I do not actually follow and respect it then how am I part of it!!

Similarly, all women & men who call themselves Feminists or even Equalist, however, hate men or bash women in the name of equal rights or use misogyny or misandry erasures to fulfill their personal agenda of hate are neither Feminist or Equalist. Also, all the MRA’s here: I am looking at you too. Take off your privilege & look around. You aren’t oppressed. Stop your misogyny in the name of equal rights. We all know that you do not see us as equals but as witches instead.

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Gemma Cairney’s beginner’s guide to feminism, including a recommended reading list, an exclusive extract from her book, Open: A Toolkit for How Magic and Messed Up Life Can Be : “It’s essentially a powerful belief  that  we  live  in  a  patriarchal society (a society essentially run and governed by  men) and that this ain’t cool.

To be a feminist in the most basic of terms means to believe in equality. Feminists do not believe that men are evil or that women are better than men. They believe that women are equally as valuable and important in society as men and should be treated as such, and not be valued or judged by their looks – or feel that they have to dress any particular way – or judged by their ability to reproduce, but by their equal contribution to the workplace and beyond.  

Feminism makes sense. Calling yourself a feminist does not tag you as a man-hater or someone who does not like to be feminine – it tags you as someone who believes in equality. Women can be beautiful and powerful, they can be leaders and carers, they can be loud and wild if they choose or just one or none of those things if they choose.  Women are almighty dynamic. Being a feminist means you are a champion of the rights of other women to achieve all that they are capable of. Many men are feminists too.” 

And they should be.

Feminism is a radical notion that women are people.

The truth is, a huge part of being a Feminist is giving other women the freedom to make choices you might not necessarily make yourself.

COMPLICIT SILENCE

There are major issues faced by women in this sexist society. And along with that, there are issues faced by men at the same time too. Why don’t we sit together like mature beings, take off our privilege and hate, acknowledge the problems & work together to eliminate them? How hard is that! But instead, women, are told to shut up. 

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Women are constantly classed by men on how to react when most men are too immature to accept a rejection and understand personal space and mutual respect. — “Oh, honey! Don’t be a cry baby. Don’t wave your victim card. Don’t wave your woman card. Shut up and grow up. If you do not learn to ignore it you are in for a very rough life.”

No person should shut up or stay silent. Women should speak up against misogyny because if they don’t, society will continue to think that women are okay with this kind of behavior. And men should speak up too because to stay quiet when you see a section of your society disrespected and treated as below human…is equal to you being an oppressor yourself. A man who speaks up and is not complicit can make a great difference.

Learn this instead: “Don’t be so sexist. Act like a mature person. Understand personal space. Don’t be creepy. Open your mind. This world is changing. For good. If you do not hold yourself accountable and become a respecting adult, you will be thrown off and will fall flat on your face in a sexist puddle of your making.  And you know, masculinity is a fragile thing”

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• COMPLICIT WOMEN: Women have been stripped of their rights for so long, stripped of their dignity that we have women in every generation that are desensitized to sexism and conditioned into systematic misogyny — in the name of religion, culture, tradition. That they are brainwashed into believing that the only rightful place of women is under the thumb of men, under control. They are conditioned into believing that it is the only way for the survival of society. That the women are the only one that needs to keep their morality & sexuality in check. These women are complicit. 

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These women become the enablers of sexism and female oppression themselves. Most of the times disrespecting and degrading the new generation of young women, similar to how they were degraded by the generations of women before them. Especially societies in the Middle East, South Asia this is clearly visible and in societies in developed patriarchal countries like America, UK, etc they take a more casual form.

This social structure of patriarchy and this ‘H20 argument’ by those who don’t understand the importance of Feminism & its stance of women empowerment is toxic. And I have seen women who have been desensitized and conditioned into it. Women who pressure, shame and push young girls and other women into oppression. Women who side with the patriarchy and play the Devil’s advocate. 

Unsurprisingly whenever there is a conversation of women issues and conditions…we often find men put the entire blame on women. Women for not speaking up, for being complicit, for suffering and for being conditioned. The blame women for making things worse for other women, for stopping other women to progress and break gender norms. And when women speak up the same men blame women for being too loud, too demanding, and for speaking up to demand a change.

The truth is women who are complicit, and who become enablers of patriarchy and female oppression are themselves, victims of a lifetime of conditioning, brainwashing, fear-mongering and traditional gender stereotypes. VICIOUSLY CONDITIONED SINCE BIRTH.

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It is important that women are no longer complicit, that they do not become enablers and helpers of misogyny. At the same time remember that complicit women are themselves the victims of misogyny themselves.

It is our duty to teach future young girls the same. And teach our young boys not to stay silent about it. We need to break this vicious cycle if we want our society to flourish.

Break the vicious cycle.

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SHATTER GENDER ROLES

Women have been controlled in every way possible. And no woman should be punished for a man’s apparent lack of control.

Men and women aren’t the same. Our bodies are different. Our minds are. Our brains are. We are two sub-species of a modern human species. We aren’t ‘equal’. We are different. And we need to acknowledge this difference & embrace it. We aren’t superior or inferior to each other. We are the same. With different faults & abilities, with different bodies, with different physical and emotional challenges. We aren’t equal & yet we are equals. And we need to understand this. We need to look around and uplift women and empower them because since thousands of years we aren’t treated with equal rights & dignity.

From a scientific & sociological point of view :

• Gender roles are inherently sexist since it promotes the caveman stereotype of what a woman’s work is & what is that of a man without disturbing the comfort level of the misogynistic patriarchal society. Gender roles were only feasible when we humans were cavemen. The women would huddle inside the cave taking care of infants and the men would slave outside risking their lives to hunt food & protect their group.

• There were no modern technologies that would make it feasible for interchangeable roles.
eg: if a women had to go out and hunt not only would it increase the chance of her being attacked or killed by a wild animal…how would the men feed the infant that could only survive on breast milk or rear them since their instinct was more brutal (to survive) than emotional (something that was really important to protect the group). — Or another eg: To increase the population of groups cavemen would often steal or force women from other groups to mate and reproduce. They were not civilized and like any wild animals did not know how to control sexual urges.

• The biological elements of a body are not only influenced by the physiology of a body but also the mind, which in turn is heavily influenced by the external environment, which in turn influences the behavioral patterns of a being in a group. The only basic instinct of a human body is to breathe, to drink water, to eat food, and satisfy sexual desire. Apart from that specific gender roles and the power structure is a learned behavior and has no connection with ‘biochemical’ nature of the human species.

• Women aren’t meant to be less powerful than men, or less able despite the physical and psychological differences. Men aren’t meant to be the leader of the pack. A guard doesn’t equal to a strategist or a leader. Just because a subspecies’ biological imperative is to ‘guard’ because of their physical strength doesn’t make them a strategist or a leader. The protectors can either be soldiers or can be leaders. Leadership and strategist skills exist in both male & female subspecies. Also, physical and psychological strength & emotional intelligence can be found in both subspecies, in some more than the others; but in both subspecies nevertheless.

• Human beings are social animals, if we strip the external influence from them and only stick to the biological nature that is meant for basic survival, they will not exist at the top of the food chain as they are today. Personality is made up of behavior, and behavior is a response to a stimulus, both innate and learned behaviors. So to keep talking about innate doesn’t make a human whole. Gender roles aren’t innate behavior. Its high time people learn to understand the difference between instinct & gender ‘norm’

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I know it is hard to shake off that inert sexist attitude that we grow up with, again some more than the other depending of the learned behavior from the different societies that we live in, however, like any learned behavior it can be unlearned and a fresh new outlook can be explored.  

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• In the end, we can’t keep making arguments by saying — “But that’s not what we are supposed to be wired biochemically in terms of the gender sub-species differences” — Not only that would be scientifically and sociological inaccurate but also humans are the top because we evolve. We have evolved in terms of group and society and body and mind. And only if we continue to get out of our comfort zone, we are going to evolve better and our civilization is going to survive. The rules of the past were meant to survive at that time. Today, the present requires a different power balance to make it to a better future.

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Gender stereotypes and biology isn’t an excuse for us to follow through our irrational impulses that are only fit for wild animals and uncivilized hunter-gatherers. Let’s also stop making it an excuse to respect another person as being equal and important.

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Women are meant to be leaders in and outside their house. Just like any man. Saying that they get their perks by gender roles without understanding the problem with these stereotypes is equal to being given a palace and then being told that you can’t step out of it.

It is okay if you (as a woman) want to live your life in that palace and not stepping outside ever, it is also okay if you (as a woman) want to leave that palace, work on your own and build your own palace where you can come and go as you please. You should make that choice about yourself, not a social gendered role. You should have that choice.

Feminism is about fighting for the power to have a choice.

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Women Empowerment: As a rule of balance, in order to equal the scale …empower the oppressed section to uplift them, educate the privileged section so that they understand why the other section requires empowerment.

Women have been constantly asked to shut up because talking isn’t ladylike. We have been witch-hunted & burnt on stake because we were loud with our opinions, loud enough for people to think of it as being unnatural. Evil.

What is interesting is that most people actually believe that misogyny & sexism is a myth like Global warming is for a lot of people. Saying that this issue doesn’t exist does not mean it does not, but simply that you are too blinded by your privilege to look around, acknowledge a problem & then hold mature discussions to understand it & work together to eliminate it.

This world of patriarchy was built on the silence of women. So the last thing women need is to stay quiet. Because if women around the world will not discuss this issue no one will know that it is even a problem. It is important for us to stay on the same page and acknowledge the poor condition of women & the need for women empowerment. If we do not acknowledge the existence of a problem, we can never truly solve it.

What we need to understand is that we all need to treat each other with equal respect because we are all equal, not superior or inferior. Equal. That does not mean that the male population or their problems are overlooked. While people must be taught to respect everyone we need to give more attention & emphasis especially towards women because in a patriarchal setting like this women get less respect than men. And Men too suffer because of constant pressure to live under the shadow of toxic masculinity.

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Women empowerment is important and critical because women need to be uplifted. They have been and are oppressed. Once we achieve that goal, we then will follow a 100% Equalist set up. Equality setup is putting the same weight equally and both the scales are equal. This is where women empowerment is important. the scales have been uneven since centuries, so we need to uplift women, put more weight on that part of the scale.

 CONSTANT MISINTERPRETATION OF FEMINISM

What we need to understand is that we can only follow an Equalist setup once we have uplifted the lesser privileged sections with the help of the Feminist setup. Without this, we will never truly be equals.  

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Feminism is a movement for Equality and freedom of voice and choice.

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On the other hand, “Equalist’, ‘Humanists’ are all labels to identify supporting Equality. The funny thing about the label is identifying with one label or the other that falls under the same movement, makes you not only comfortable with it but also, part of the movement. So, before you put down a movement or label in favor of another, ensure that you know everything about it first.

 

The H2O Argument :

I call it – “The argument that you have with a person when you are too quick to judge and when you call someone wrong while being too lazy to understand that you and the other person are both talking about the same thing or issue. At the same time your inability to take off your rose-colored glasses and a childlike paroxysm to not even attempt to have an open mind to understand the problem in the true sense that as a result makes you unfit for a mature & logical conversation, and instead makes you a buffoon!” (if you’ll pardon my French)

If you believe in Equality. If I believe in Equality. We both believe in the same thing. I call it Feminism and you call it Equality/or other terms. Why does it matter? What is there in a term? You call it a ‘water’ or an ‘H2O’ it eventually means the same thing.

People have a problem with Feminism because when we come from privilege, equality feels like an oppression.

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• FEMINISM IS EQUALITY. Equality is not women supremacy. Equality is having equal rights. Equal respect of both sexes. Those who are afraid of Feminism, are afraid that men will be treated the same way women have been treated for thousands of years – with humiliation & oppression.

• FEMINISM IS IMPORTANT. Because Feminist campaigns are the main force behind major historical societal changes for women’s rights.

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Particularly in the West, where they are near-universally credited with achieving women’s suffrage, gender neutrality in English, reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property, the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to earn fair wages or equal pay, to receive education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to have maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to legal abortions and social integration, and to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.

And although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women’s rights, feminists also argue for the inclusion of men’s liberation within its aims because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles.

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• FEMINISM IS MISUNDERSTOOD. By people who somehow believe in some form of equality, and is hated by people who don’t believe in Equality for women, or the right of minorities to have a freedom of choice. 

• FEMINISM IS NOT A DIRTY WORD. It is not something that you can twist around and throw it at people who are Feminist, thinking that somehow it would insult them. No. Because you are either a feminist or a sexist.

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People should be ashamed of being sexist, not ashamed of supporting Equality.

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Gender inequality continues to have a huge social, psychological and economic impact on modern human societies. And those societies who do not evolve and change their power & societal structure with time, they crumble. 

All sexes are the victims of gender norms and their prerogatives.

And if you still struggle to accept it or admit it, despite extensive scientific evidence, research, and statistical data. If you still struggle to understand it despite women every day publicly talking about it. Or if you still struggle to see it even though it is right in front of your eyes; YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

ATTRIBUTES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

 ✿ IMAGES : choualaclem  • Tumblr • Google • Pinterest • creativemarket.com/svetabelaya 

✿ BOOKS : Gemma Cairney – Open: A Toolkit for How Magic and Messed Up Life Can Be • Rachel P. Maines – The Technology of Orgasm 

✿ ARTICLES : Katica Roy – Why We Need Gender Equity Now • Jia Tolentino – The rage of the Incels •  Shalome Sine – On the sexist etimology of “hysteria,” and what academia did about it  • Clare Warner –  6 Ways The Patriarchy Is Harmful To Men, Because Feminism Isn’t Just For Women • Jenny Kutner – Study: Men overcompensate in gross ways when their masculinity is threatened • https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-time-for-companies-to-try-a-new-gender-equality-playbook-1474963861 • http://www.businessinsider.com/top-two-percent-every-us-state-2017-7  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria • https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/female-hysteria_n_4298060  • http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_rape_in_america_a_new_study_reveals_that_men_are_sexually_assaulted.html •http://www.thehotline.org/2014/07/22/men-can-be-victims-of-abuse-too/

✿ RESEARCHES : www3.weforum.org/docs/GGGR16/WEF_GGGR16_Full_Report.pdf  • https://www.cebglobal.com/human-resources/gender-equality.html  • https://www.hbr.org/2016/04/if-theres-only-one-woman-in-your-candidate-pool-theres-statistically-no-chance-shell-be-hired  • https://piie.com/publications/wp/wp16-3.pdf • https://hbr.org/2008/06/stopping-the-exodus-of-women-in-science • http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/press-releases/?doing_wp_cron=1532704766.6086668968200683593750 • https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_318.30.asp?current=yes  •  http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf