Life is a continuous battle where individuals are constantly
struggling, unconcerned of who they thwart on their way, desperate to attain
the ultimate goal; power. All political ideologies centre on power and control.
Who has it? How it is achieved? How to maintain it? How to overthrow existing
powerful institutions? These are the reoccurring questions addressed by
philosophers, politicians and sociologists alike. Every group, regardless of them
identifying as Marxists, Capitalists, Liberals, Conservatives or Radicals, have
their own interpretations and answers to these questions. Though they have
diverse, often contradictory, views there is a common underlying theme in all
the ideologies: empowering man. Specifically man, not woman or humans in
general. Their thoughts, concerns and ideas all revolve around the betterment
of man, the superior sex. Or so they believe it to be. In such a patriarchal
society, who fights for gender equality, against female discrimination and
oppression? Thus emerges another ideology: feminism, which in the simplest of
words is the belief that “women should be as free as men” and should have equal
rights and opportunities.
Power and property reinforce each other; those with property
enjoy power over those who without it, hence property acts as a basis for class
differentiation and discrimination according to the Marxist view. This is where
Radical Feminists and Marxist ideologies overlap. Hence radical feminists
demand not only for compensations and representations rather for the
replacement of existing systems with those which give equal (economic)
opportunities to both genders. Yet men refuse to bridge this economic gap because
it would have far-reaching consequences against their interests. The fact of
the matter is that the existing systems benefit men, and they will fight tooth
and nail to prevent any disruption of the system. They will continue to
suppress women until their fighting spirit dies out but will never willing hand
over to women, the opportunity to stand at an equal footing as them.
5 comments:
I agree with you that there has been a trend in history towards empowering the male gender, both in the fields of economics and politics. This gives men access to power and economic wealth and the means to sustain their dominance over women.
However, work has been done by feminists for gender equality and there has been a progress in the form of voting rights for women and acceptance in the economic and political arenas.
male dominance is quite deep rooted in our society due to the patriarchal mindset. It can not be changed overtime as all components of our society are reinforcing this patriarchal mindset in one way or another. However, our television dramas produced many such telefilms/dramas which condemns this patriarchal idea through its message.
The idea of male domination is especially prevalent in our society, more so than in the West. However, this mindset is deeply ingrained in the society as a whole for many generations. The problem is that a large number of women in our society also believe that men are superior and they have accepted this as the 'right' way of living. I would disagree with the idea that women are being suppressed because this is the way most of them have gotten used to living. If women themselves have accepted their place in a male dominated society, change is unlikely to come about.
I agree with Yusra that the problem with South Asia and other similar states is that male domination has become the accepted norm.
Empowered women are seen as the reasons for a divorce and therefore a broken home. They are not considered as the ideal candidate for marriage proposals either.
Therefore women, suppressed by men who support this patriarchal mindset fail to acquire their share of private property and their rights. Sadly if they somehow do so it comes at a large cost in our society.
Definitely, many societies around the world are patriarchal such as India and Pakistan, in fact, the Chinese economies once used to be male dominated as well. Feminists have lobbied and advocated for the rights of women, but, it can not be ignored that differences lie within the feminist ideology as well. Radical feminists, liberal feminists as well as black feminists hold views that somehow differ, thus, governing on the basis on the feminist ideology does not seem viable to me. Moreover, feminism is subject bound and fails to look at other aspects that are also important such as unemployment, these other aspects are well incorporated in other ideologies such as liberalism. Feminism can not prosper alone as a political ideology similar to anarchism. However, other ideologies such as liberalism can hold elements of feminism such as liberty of women and individualism that can grant the basic protection of women rights along with touching other objectives of the government, and thus, seem more promising than feminism alone.
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