Feminism

            I have a problem with feminism. Did someone throw a betterment of humanity party and not invite me? It’s mostly the name that makes me think this, but feminism seems like a bit of a no boys allowed club. I realize that men have continuously been hostile towards this subject, but if they realized that they had something to gain they might be a little more helpful (hopefully). There are some pretty good reasons for men to care about gender equality, two of which are the fact that we have gender inequalities of our own, and the fact that we should be responsible for improving the role we have in society.

            Men have some pretty crappy gender stereotypes that I would like to see make their way out of our culture. A big one is how men are encouraged to be the violent gender. Men are pushed to solve problems with their fists, and to value fighting ability over other means of conflict resolution. Intelligent adults shouldn't behave this way, but they do. Another particularly disgusting institution is how males are taught to hate and oppress our homosexuals. Female homosexuality is essentially encourages, in a terribly exploitative way, but I still thing ours is worse. Insinuating that a man is homosexual is one of the biggest insults around, which is dumb, because who you find attractive doesn't make you a bad person, but being an ignorant jackass does. Cultural viewpoints towards sex and woman that are urged on men are something that I find displeasing as well. Treating women as objects, applauding sexual conquest, associating love with what can only be described as bribes, and the conditioning of the Pavlovian response to cleavage are just some of the aspects that I don't like in male societal norms. I realize that all the things in the last sentence set up women as victims, which sucks, but it’s also setting up men as the culprits, which isn't great either.

Bad Role Models

            Now when men aren't punching each other in the face or having sex with big breasted women, we are supposed to be hoarding wealth and exerting our will over others. I'm talking about money and power, and I don't agree with how much value men are expected to put into these concepts. What is really scary is that some women may be trying to share in the money and power game. All I know is that the media is only commonly mentioning the gender differences in salaries and management positions, but I don’t think the media has ever done much to help gender equality. What I hope both genders will esteem (or continue to do so) are professions that involve aspects like protecting others (police, firefighting), building/inventing/creating (engineering, programming, art), and technical/scientific prowess (science, IT, mechanics). Art is probably the only field I mentioned that is well gender balanced, but I forgot to mention the admirable careers that women dominate. These are the nurturing, caring, and teaching related jobs, like nurses, therapists, and teachers. I wouldn't mind seeing more value put into these occupations, especially for men. I am still forgetting what I think of as the most important human pursuit, which is very female dominated. This is child rearing, and while being limited to only this job is awful, the fact that this is the most meaningful human pursuit out there shouldn't be forgotten, and it doesn't even have a salary.

Good Role Models

            I believe in feminism, but would prefer to call myself a gender equalist. Thinking about it, I don’t really have a problem with feminism because I can respect women’s desire to solve their own cultural problems, and I am actually upset by my own sex’s failure to address these problems. In the end I still feel that actions should be self-determined, so in a move that I hope will be welcomed, I will leave women to work on their own behavioral norms, and hopefully my side can meet you in the middle someday. Apparently the genders are equal in how we are both being equally screwed over by atrocious stereotypes and customs. That isn't actually true, because men don't have to live with fears of sexual assault, which is the topic that I most want to leave you thinking about.