Men ignorant of feminist issues

Christopher Taylor

I am a male. I am a feminist.

Yes, men can be feminists, too.

I have attempted to ask men of all different types of backgrounds if they were feminists. I received shocked reactions and puzzled looks as if I had asked a final-round Jeopardy question.

The most common theme about feminism in dictionaries describes it as a doctrine or movement to ensure “equal rights.” How is this idea still so foreign to us, and why the hell is it even being debated?

It has to be debated because people of all different backgrounds will always be ignorant about the issues influencing the lives of women every day. And abortion isn’t nearly the most important of these issues.

Enough with women being blamed for the rape that they endured. Enough for women receiving an average of 76 cents to a dollar that a man receives. Enough of advertisements only glorifying a woman’s breasts. And enough of the ideation that all feminists are bull-lesbians. It needs to stop now.

Sexism is ingrained in so many parts of society that inevitably every woman will face it at some point in her life. Men dominate and call the shots within the political realm, in retail, as doctors, as lawyers. I asked one of my family members recently why more men did not stay at home with the children while the female works.

“A huge majority of men just won’t do that,” she responded.

Why? Is there something that wrong with being a homemaker? Or is it just a traditionally feminine role? How did society come to assign such gender roles?

Third-wave feminists are attempting every day to make sure their message that “women are not equal” is heard, and that is all. They are asking for society to be respectful of their choice, their bodies and their consciences. I don’t think that’s too difficult of a request.

If attitudes do not change, society won’t accept equality and the onslaught of the women’s rights movement will continue from all sides. Surfing the Internet led me to a Web site called “Ladies Against Feminism” (or LAF) and an article by Forbes.com editor Michael Noer, which said “Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don’t marry a woman with a career.”

So, women at Kent State should either quit their majors now, or when they graduate, they should stay home.

Here’s another fun quote from Marianne Brennan on Humanevents.com: “As a woman, I have every right to drink, to dress however I want, and to go to a man’s room alone. I also have every right to walk into an urban ghetto and scream racial slurs, but if I got shot, no one would argue that I wasn’t complicit in my own victimhood.”

What? Not only is she stereotyping “urban ghettos” as areas reserved for blacks, but she is comparing an action full of ignorance and hatred with a woman who likes to have a drink every so often. One is deliberate; the other is not.

Brennan, Noer and the Ladies Against Feminism are classic examples of people continuing to push their primitive agendas on Americans, and in the case of the LAF Web site, offer Bible verses justifying women being faceless and voiceless in society.

Unfortunately for them we won’t hide or shut up anytime soon.

Christopher Taylor is a senior nursing major and point/counterpoint columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].