THE FUTURE IS EVERYONE.
I’m a feminist. I believe in the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. I believe that for a society to run wild, then we need both men and women to be held to account. We need all genders to take part in shaping the future that is for all and sundry. I am of the belief that when women are regarded as equal, of the same importance as everyone else then we will be headed in the right direction.
Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic sphere, while public life was reserved for men. In medieval Europe, women were denied the right to own property, to study, or to participate in public life. At the end of the 19th century in France, they were still compelled to cover their heads in public, and, in parts of Germany, a husband still had the right to sell his wife. Even as late as the early 20th century, women could neither vote nor hold elective office in Europe and in most of the United States (where several territories and states granted women’s suffrage long before the federal government did so). Women were prevented from conducting business without a male representative, be it father, brother, husband, legal agent, or even son. Married women could not exercise control over their own children without the permission of their husbands. Moreover, women had little or no access to education and were barred from most professions. In some parts of the world, such restrictions on women continue today.
Times have changed and so is the status quo. Women are now as liberated as they come. We can own property, access quality educations, choose whether or not they want to get married, drive, vote, hold elective offices as high as the president's office. Women are at the forefront of every new and refreshing program. Women in tech, women in agriculture, women in leadership, women in entrepreneurship, name it, she's all in. As my lecturer once said, “this is a silent take over, one that can only be seen by intellects”. Men might still hold positions of power but bit by bit women are filling the rooms. They are taking it all back. The future as most “feminists” would say is FEMALE.
With the rise of feminist cropped a different kind of movement. With slogans like “what a man can do a woman can do it better”. Feminists who want to fight men, not the patriarchy. Feminists who have made it their sole duty to declare war on the men. Men went from being a point of inspiration to a point of disgust. Women went from admiring the positions held by men to fighting men for the said positions. I call them toxic feminists. Most women have made it their sole responsibility to point fingers in the male direction instead of dealing with the societal issues that plague all of us.
A man will never be a yardstick to my success. A man will never be a measuring point to the woman I am going to be. This is the main reason why I don't praise the phrase that a man can be a woman can do it better. I am not here to compete with the opposite gender, I am here to draw inspiration, to learn to engage, collect constructive criticism and to very much gain from them as much as I can. As Kathryn Cloward once wrote, I’m an empowered woman who has consistently blazed my own trail and earned my own living, not in spite of men but in cooperation with them.
I refuse to join this bandwagon of feminists who believe that they don’t need men because yours truly does. Individuals who blanket the male fraternity as losers, deadbeat dads, useless members of the society who need to be dealt with in one way or the other. The resultant force is that most women grow up hating men, men are dogs arent they?. Women fail to raise their sons with the right tools and in the right direction because of the failure of acknowledging that men like any other gender needs to be present in a child's life. Some men might have fallen off the cause a number of times but so have women, we are all fallible so let's not point fingers.
We need men. We need men to be present in our lives. Masculine energy is good energy. We need men to be leading examples to our kids and even role models for our own levels. We need men to hold hands, laugh and basically relate with. Let's fight the over-taxation, the unequal pay, favoritism in the workplace but while at it let us not get blindsided. Let us not lose sight of the goal so much that we start viewing the other gender as the enemy. Let us ensure that we can co-exist in the most perfect manner. A balanced society for not only you and me but for generations to come. The future is not only EVERONE but EVERYONE’S!