The End of Men: And the Rise of Women - Essay Example

Gender and Sexual Studies

Introduction

Cultural diversity is a critical factor in our society ranging from gender, race, class, and social differences exhibited in our community. These cultural factors are supposed to be the instruments of power and positive change among us but with distortion and misconceptions at work, they are the tools used for destruction. Fear of the unknown manifest itself all over the world and refusal to embrace people with differences from ourselves keeps us from ever benefiting from the diverse world. Gender differences have for a long time been a cause of conflict over roles and powers of each sex with the women regularly viewing themselves as a minority fighting the oppressions of the male gender.

Feminists are involved in the war between masculinity and femininity, their roles simply being to bring gender equality into existence. The significant variation between these two sexes being power, men are known to be domineering in most fields of life while women are the submissive servants of the opposite sex (Rosin,115). The roles given to each ever since time immemorial have mostly favored men and seen them take all the best that life has to offer while the women receive the leftovers. As women parade their artillery in the fight for equality, men are less concerned with the conflict, enjoying their share of life and working on to historical greatness. Thus, women are left compiling laws and books campaigning for their rights and advocating for a female revolution in the world as the men strive on to reaching other heights in their fields. Empowering the female gender is an important subject, and it should not be thought that men are not aware of this fact; it just isn’t the primary role of human beings to dwell on conflict while development waits.

The society has played a significant role in ensuring that the disparity in men and women’s role is witnessed by all from the tender age where their understanding is built. It has spared no one of the realities of the world full of inconsistency with clear instances of female oppression all over the media broadcasts and at times in family set ups. The war at hand is, therefore, a realistic war in which sides have already been chosen for participants by their default birth into either gender.

Progress has been made over time and women have come from a position of less power to a more prominent post in the modern world. Strides made all over the world in the fight for gender equality are notable and evident with women taking on more important roles in society in the current century. The fields of work have started to be dominated by females as institutions of learning are also full of the female gender than witnessed in the earlier generations. The field of pharmacy is an example of how the women empowerment programs have succeeded in giving women equal roles to those of men.

In the political scene, more women than earlier witnessed are in positions of leadership with Hillary Clinton, once secretary of state in the United States an example. Female presidents and prime ministers have also emerged all over the world with a count of nineteen women in such positions up to date. Women representation in governments all over the world has as well been incorporated into modern laws to ensure issues affecting our mothers and daughters have been aired appropriately and addressed.

Institutions of learning from the lower level centers are populated with more females than males in some parts of the world with ladies taking a lead in academic matters than their counterparts. It is possible that in such regions, male students are opting to join the manufacturing turf without completing their education since their masculinity enables them to engage in labor-intensive duties that need more brawn than brain. Even in these situations, women are still dominating since the number of female workers in a statistic taken in the United States suggests that women comprise about fifty or more percent of the labor population.

These should be adequate reasons for women and feminist to be rejoicing, but that is not the case as it is suggested that the improved conditions pose a threat to their existence. A feminist does exist to combat oppression and radicalize women about issues affecting them, so it might be true to say that they are threatened by the better life standards achieved. It may mean that they are running out of jobs at a fast rate as the world incorporates the issues affecting women. Such a belief, may, however, be misleading since they too rejoice and celebrate the improved status of the female gender.

Improvement should, therefore, not be viewed as an achievement of the ultimate standard of life, since various issues still exist in the modern day that oppresses women. In the field of engineering, men are still the dormant gender with their population highly uneven. It is also a shame that the United States has never had a female president over its period of existence. Such a republic boasting of high levels of democracy should at least have one female president to regulate the male dominance in the political scene of the country.

It is as well disappointing that only nineteen female presidents and prime ministers have existed in the world up to the current date increasing the statistic that equality is far from being achieved, and the feminist has a right to be dissatisfied. Improvements in the state are therefore not a reason to stop the endless calls for better conditions all over the world. The position of women as oppressed is still valid and with some state leaders trying to define rape and justify it by giving it types means there is still plenty to fight against.

Legalizing rape by calling it honest or emergency rape is a move that clearly oppresses females, going further to force women to give birth to children from rape circumstances is another debatable topic.

The diversity in the conflict between male and female gender is one so complex that some might claim to empower women will lead to disempowering of men. It seems that the world views the opportunities around them to be so scarce that they cannot be shared by both men and women, and that giving the power to one side means taking it from the other (Vander, 13). Such is the situation expressed by the debate on legitimate rape and the support accorded to the proponents of forcing women to give birth to children gotten from rape.

The debate in some of the states should not be seen as works of men in oppressing their counterparts as some women also supported the concept of legitimate rape and types of abuse. Women are, therefore, not free from the oppression of their gender, they oppress each other by race, class and social status, categories which cannot be seen as equal. They view themselves better than each other on a basis of how much they have achieved and the roles they play in society. A false notion is propelled from the above statement, meaning that in their struggle for equality, more inequality is achieved.

In the United States, white women in the feminist cloud are viewed to be tackling different forms of oppression from their fellow black feminist. It is only on several issues that they may join forces and battle a similar enemy, say for example the problem of resistance from the third world perspective. The rest of the items are tackled individually with each group taking its path to counter feminist agendas from the oppressors. The American women are therefore in a similar battle in the war against female oppression, sexuality and other matters affecting them but using different tools and strategies to face the foe.

The contribution of the poor women, gay women, and colored women should be a diversity that can be approached with less coldness, embraced and taken into consideration if any substantial change is to be achieved. Ignoring these vital contributions of all the affected parties in the equality war only weakens the feminist’s arguments making it easy for their counterparts to manipulate the outcome to their favor. Self-righteousness by those at the top class in society and discrimination of those different from themselves only leads to a divided front.

It’s a widely known war tactic that to split a group enables it to be easily conquered and controlled. The refusal to appreciate diversity by the female gender in their fight for equality is a means of division enjoyed by the master who keeps their counterpart distracted with duties of servitude and within the clutches of oppression. Women will, therefore, remain divided in all the essential fronts and only united in their maternal powers where they are unopposed as they have dominance in that special role alone.

While women remain divided by their social differences the opposite gender will continue to dominate in all the important fields with the satisfaction that a weakened force cannot remove them from their crucial position in the world (Gay, 98).

Interdependence would be the right approach to the crisis and conflict at hand for the general benefit of the world. Empowering women should not threaten men as it only means the world will have more diverse development ideas and creativity will be at its best. It is only fair and just that every party receives an equal portion of the pie and power is free for anyone to take provided they have the right motives and objectives. Women advocating for changes and reforms in the state of the world should be able to embrace diversity since it is the very thing they desire most. Thus, appreciating the views of other females from different traces of life will help build a reformed future that is stronger in every perspective.

A reformed world can only be achieved by understanding every condition of life available in our planet and being brave enough to embrace and implement it.