Has Feminism gone too far?
Before you start bristling and get your many arguments ready
to tell me about how much farther it still needs to go—let me say one thing: I
agree completely with you.
Let me specify the question: Has feminism gone too far in
regards to men?
What I mean is this: in pursuit of equality between men and
women, our society has taken the “normal” roles of men in relationships.
Even up until the 90’s, boys growing up have always been
told that they will be the one that is expected to provide for their family and
for their wives in specific. It seems that today, especially in the last 15
years, they’re now told that they aren’t expected to fully provide for their
families—that they should find a career wife and have the burden shared.
I have no issue with that. What I think has happened though
is that we have taken away a role for men that helps them focus on growth,
success, and development of responsibility without replacing it with another role.
Men are creatures of purpose. They are “fixers”, they strive
to create or lead. With feminism we’ve diminished the importance of being the
head of household I think. The issue with that is, because we haven’t told them
what to do instead, men are often left with loose ends and a lesser since of
purpose. Yes, men are told to be a partner in their relationship but in my
experience men inherently wish to lead. Feminism though has taught them though
that they shouldn’t lead, that it is diminishing and sometimes offensive towards
their female counter parts to lead in a relationship.
What this has done to my generation of men, I believe, has given
them a sense of flippancy when it comes to relationship building. I know not
every single young man is like this, but I think as a society that is how we
now perceive men. They’re not seeking a serious relationship until much later
in their 20’s or even 30’s now.
Women talk about how men never grow up, but I think an issue
now is that women aren’t inspiring men to grow up because we’ve been telling
them that we can take care of them instead. Why should a guy strive to be a man
if he can just use his looks to attract a mate?
I’m not suggesting that women need to take a back seat to
leadership, their careers, or any of the great strides we’ve made in the last
20 years. But I think that we need to start holding men more accountable in our
society as relationship leaders, to again inspire men to want to be better for
the sake of having a family. We need to give men a role in relationships and
life again that is compatible with the role of an independent woman. And women
need to know that men can be inspired to step up, that they will step up, and
help shoulder the burden of life.
As a woman, I believe I can do all that life requires of me.
It’ll be hard, I won’t know everything, and it might make me rip my hair out.
But as a spouse, I know I can ask for help from a man who is better than me in
certain tasks.
I don’t believe equality has to mean that I can do
everything as well as my husband. I believe equality means that we can depend
on each other with things that we aren’t good at, without it ever being
anything less than a true partnership.
True Equality, I believe, means complete respect for another
human being.
