By Anonymous
For too long have I sat in silence during arguments and discussions about this topic, with words forming in my mouth, ready to voice my opinions but swallowing them back down my throat with the fear of being called out for being inaccurate, biased or just plain wrong. After sitting with my mouth shut and listening to debates and fights I’ve grown impatient enough to subject you with my views. I may be inaccurate, but that’s only because I’m young and inexperienced. I may be biased, but that is since I’ve only conformed to one gender throughout my whole life. And if you think that I’m wrong, know that this is but my opinion, an opinion shaped and moulded by the things I’ve witnessed over these 16 years.
All over the internet, you would’ve seen memes or videos with overly edgy jokes some tugging at certain psychological traits of women and some blatantly calling them “dishwashers” or saying that they belong in the kitchen. If any of you have ever tried reasoning with the monsters who find this funny, you’ll notice that the one thing they constantly love to fall back on is the sorry excuse that it’s “just a joke”. However, the fact that people can even think that it’s okay to joke about this is despicable. It almost seems like a way of being overtly coy about putting women and girls beneath males.
A multitude of people are of the impression that modern feminism is a farce and is unnecessary today. They seem to believe that after giving women voting rights, equality is a done deal. Since nothing runs by people but cold hard facts, allow me to share a few statistics with you.
Despite comprising about 50% of the total population, women form only 39.1% of the total global workforce.
Only 24.3% of the world’s parliamentarians are women, which comes to only 11,000 female parliamentarians.
Only 7.2% of the Fortune 500 companies are headed by women, which comes to only 36 female CEOs.
Globally 34.3 million girls do not attend primary school as compared to 29.1 million boys.
In 17 countries, women cannot get a job the same as men.
24% of countries do not have laws on domestic violence.
62% of countries do not prohibit discrimination in employment because of sexual orientation.
More than 200 million women alive today have undergone FGM(Female Genitalia Mutilation).
In 2018 over 33,000 Indian women have been raped.
Abortion is illegal in at least 26 different countries.
But you’re right, we don’t need feminism.
I feel like I don’t even need to bring up the abuse women constantly suffer from in our country. From children to teenagers to adult women to even brutally murdered girls, women are constantly in danger of facing abuse and harassment. Believe it or not, a study conducted by the National Crimes Record Bureau of India in 2012 declared that a woman is being sexually assaulted every 3 minutes and I’m pretty sure the numbers haven’t gotten better since.
There also a vast majority of people who feel that feminism has become synonymous to “man-hating”. But what these people may be trying to get at is toxic feminism. Regular feminism has always tried to bridge the gap between men and women instead of raising women higher than men.
In fact, one organisation birthed by UN Women called HeForShe recognises the plea of abused men as much as it does for women. However, toxic feminists use the “this is sexist” card every time they’re ever called out. Not only is this wrong, but it’s also an embarrassment to everything women’s rights activists have fought for.
Now on the flip side, men have been suffering from sexist laws and a female favouring society for decades. Society loves to view men as beer drinking, sports binging womanizers but never care to look beyond that. While a patriarchal society suppresses the hopes and spirits of women, it can also be an overwhelming burden on the shoulders of men to be the breadwinners of their own families and make ends meet. The obligation that males feel to ”toughen up” and “be a man” can be immensely stressful as most men feel that their problems don’t matter enough to be heard. In fact, in 2014 it was declared that the biggest cause of the demise of men in the UK between the ages of 20 to 49 is suicide, exceeding road accidents and cancer. In 92 countries, there still aren’t any policies recognising paternity leaves. In India, we have this rule drilled into our heads that a woman can do as she wishes to a man and get away with it but a man can be jailed before he knows it. The perfect embodiment of this is the infamous Indian Penal Code, Section 498A which states that a woman abused by her husband/his family can be arrested. While this law has helped multiple women countless times before, it does not exceed the number of fake claims that have been made. This has cost so many families their dignity and so many mothers their sons. To quote the journalist Deepika Bhardwaj, “We have a commission for animals, we have a commission for women, we have a commission for children but we do not have any government organisation that works for men".
Thus it’s easy to see that in the midst of all our squabbles between feminists and men’s rights activists that we’re both in dire and desperate need of each other. There seems to be this preconceived notion that men and women are equals but that’s not necessarily true. Men and women (and even gender fluid and gender-nonconforming people) are very different and have different needs and problems, and not just because of their different physical orientation. Instead, we should focus on giving each other the same amount of respect and attention to all of our needs and problems, in order to foster a beautiful community of mutual respect
Footnotes: ncrb.gov.in , heforshe.org , Men the Forgotten Gender Ted Talk- Deepika Bhardwaj , sbs.com.au , thehindu.com , goodmenproject.com
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