Monday, 14 November 2011

Women's issues / Men's Issues

Women's issues are men's issues first and foremost because everyone is living together in the same world. Any action that one group has, therefore, will have some impact, great or small, on the other group. This works both for the problem as well as the solution: you can’t have either without the participation of both groups.

The women's movement in particular is all about freedom. It's about the freedom to work different jobs and get paid fairly for them; it's about the freedom to express thoughts and opinions on a national and global scale through positions of power like the media and political office. Most importantly it's about the freedom to choose the kind of life that is appropriate for the individual – not what tradition or society dictates is proper.

This kind of thinking opens doors. It makes people question the idea that something is wrong just because it's never been done before, and that kind of thinking can only ever lead to more freedom for all people, men as well as women. If someone sees that a women had been voted into office - into a position that has mostly always been held by a man - and that women is shown to be as competent, effective and successful as any man has been, than that someone might think twice about condemning a man just because he is a stay-at-home dad. In addition that man wouldn’t be able to afford staying at home if his wife wasn't allowed to have a high-paying job, and if education wasn't available to her that allowed to qualify for that high-paying job, and if none of that happened than they might not be able to care for their kids in the first place - something that society condemns both men and women for.

A lot of the issues facing women have to do with stereotyping, whether that's about body shape or clothing choice or education and career options and stereotypes affects men just as much as women. If a women is shown to be appreciated for whatever type of beauty she possesses then it makes it a natural jump for guys with different types of body builds to be appreciated as well. This works the opposite way as well in that if the only women being shown on magazine covers are airbrushed, hourglass-shaped twigs, then the men magazines are going to airbrush muscles onto their cover models because they assume that if the present-day society is buying the women’s magazine then they must value the traditional view of physical beauty.

The issues facing women today aren’t really gender-issues at all but societal, and if we are to change them then our society itself must change, and that means progressing the thinking of everyone in it: all genders and all identities included.

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