Feminism, at its core, is an intellectual, philosophical and political discourse for equal human rights and freedom for women. It is simply “the radical notion that women are people,” as authors of the 1985 book A feminist Dictionary, Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler put it.
Female oppression existed since the beginning of order in civilization where women are treated as lesser beings and confined to their reproductive roles, passed from tribe to tribe as ‘breeding vessels’ in a patriarchal structured society, with their lives at the mercy of men.
Feminism challenges social gender role injustices people are still oblivious to even today and empower women with choices. Yet, in today’s world of supposed equality many people, especially women themselves, tend to have a negative attitude towards feminism and take their liberation for granted. Sure, feminism has brought women a long way since their days of slaving in the household but there is still a long way to go.
Unfortunately, what was originally a fight for gender equality has been misunderstood as a men-hating and anti-family movement meant to ‘de-feminize’ women. Preacher and former US Presidential candidate, Pat Robertson, once scornfully said that “Feminists encourage women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, become lesbians and destroy Capitalism”.
Gender Inequality
In reality, the human race is far from being truly liberated from restricted gender roles. On a large scale, while most of the Western civilization has moved towards a more egalitarian society under past influence from the women’s rights’ movement, the majority of the Eastern world remains strongly patriarchal where women’s rights take a backseat.
Perhaps the most notable cases are the Middle East and North Africa, where a number of countries are governed by laws that treat women as second-class citizens under eternal guardianship of male family members. In Lebanon, for instance, a battered woman cannot file for divorce without the testimony of an eyewitness, even with medical documentation of physical abuse.
On a smaller scale, gender inequality is prevalent almost everywhere: stereotypical preconceptions about women in workplaces prevented a lot of qualified women from moving ahead in jobs; women get unnecessarily judged by their looks more often; despite having careers and other personal pursuits, women are still expected to bear the burden of child raising and housework; worst of all, women are still at risk to be objectified and sexually mistreated.
Barbara Annis, world leading gender studies specialist and author of Same Words, Different Language observed after conducting over 2000 Gender Awareness Workshops and collected numerous opinions from men and women that the toughest challenges women face in the workplace are having their ideas dismissed and credibility tested because of their gender.
Towards A Sexist-Free World
Feminism is not a war against men and the family unit, nor is it a movement to impose a matriarchal order upon society. It is a discourse against patriarchy’s unfairness towards women and misogynistic attitudes that harm relationships between the genders. As freedom comes with responsibility, feminism also urges women to take responsibility for themselves by defining what career, marriage and motherhood mean to them as individuals; rather than as a social validation of their womanhood. The whole point is for women to make their own choices in life, free from social stigmas.
Imagine what it would be like to tell your little daughter that she can accomplish and be anything she wants; only a few years later to have her realize that her place is minding babies at home? This has been the plight of girls in Afghanistan who are prevented from going to school once they reach puberty. The result is an alarmingly low literacy rate among Afghan women; only 18 percent of women ages 15 to 24 are literate.
Feminism enormously benefits all man-woman relationships, too. Think of how it would be like to have a relationship with the opposite sex that builds on mutual understanding and respect, without the frustrating gender assumptions and expectations.
The author of VoiceMale: What Husbands Really Think About Their Marriages, Their Wives, Sex, Housework, and Commitment, Neil Chethik said that “Feminism freed me from the expectation that I would be the primary wage-earner in my family. Where I had once considered a career based largely on how much money I would earn, now I could ask myself: What do I really want to do?”
Being feministic is not about adopting a hostile, militant attitude against men and motherhood. In the end, before anyone is a man or woman, we are all humans first. Despite the gender differences, everyone is essentially the same. Every woman wants the same thing every man wants: love, respect, fulfillment, and acknowledgment; to be allowed to attain what we want out of life on our own merit. Just as the Swiss philosopher, Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881) had eloquently put it, "Women wish to be loved not because they are pretty, or good, or well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves".
No one, men or women, is truly free when the other is oppressed.
