2016 was the year of social movements. So many movements were changing people’s views, not only in the U.S but all over the world. The one movement that’s making so much change is the feminism movement. Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. And 2017 has been a great start for the feminism movement with the Women’s March on Saturday, January 21st 2017 that happened not only in the U.S but some countries all over the world. Feminism actually isn’t just for women, men are somehow in dire need of feminism as well. You might ask yourself, why men also need feminism. Don’t they get enough privileges already? Well if you think that way you are terribly wrong.
The lines of gender norms and gender roles are slowly being blurred out, people started to think that no matter what your gender is you can do whatever you want. This means it’s okay for men to become a stay at home dad, while his wife is the one who’s working. Or it’s okay for men to become a ballet dancer, while women can join the military. But somehow, not everyone is in support for breaking the gender roles. Some people are actually still believe that women should just stay at home taking care of her children, while men must be the one who are working and feed their family. And conservative people still think it’s a disgrace for men who are not working and just stay at home.With this kind of social stigma, men are feeling vulnerable and scared of doing things that are considered ‘not manly enough’ by society.
Society always hyper-masculinized men and always judge men by their physical features.
If you don’t have six pack abs and buffed arms, you’re not manly enough! If you’re not into sports, you’re not manly enough! And so on. Don’t forget how society always think men should not cry, or showing their weaknesses and vulnerabilities sides because men need to look tough and masculine, or else they’d be called mean nicknames like ‘sissy’, ‘wimp’, ‘f*g”, ‘p*ssy’, etc. All those perceptions are wrong and caused men to hating themselves because they feel like they’re failed to ‘becoming a man’ like what society want.
Feminism itself is about breaking all of those gender roles, sexual norms, and sexist actions that limiting people from doing what they want. We all can agree that both men and women have been hurt by the traditional gender system, because there are so many limitations about what men and women can and cannot do. Feminists think this isn’t right, Men should not be burdened by the society’s unrealistic standard, and feminists also think that everyone has the freedom to express themselves, beyond and breaking the boundaries of traditional masculinity. Men should be free to express their feelings and emotions, and to dress and act however they define themselves as and not by how societal norms dictate.
Another thing is that feminism helps changing the stereotypes of men can’t be the victims of sexual assaults and harassment because they always think that men are strong enough to defend themselves. They are wrong! Men can also be the victims of sexual harassment and assault. 9% of male have been the victims of rape or sexual assault and that’s just in the U.S, 40.2% gay men, 47.4% bisexual men and 20.8% heterosexual men reported sexual violence other than rape during their lifetime. So thinking that men can’t be the victims of sexual violence is wrong. And those are why men also need feminism in their lives, so they could do and like whatever they want without worries about what society might think of them.
Comments are closed.