Men are more valued members of our families and our societies. When I was in high school a male friend of mine told me that a girl child will never be as valuable as a boy. I of course tried to dispel this over the last ten years and he was right. I could list the studies that have proven this, even in first world countries. But well, I’ll be politicising. This value factor is, in my humble opinion, most probably the reason why men walk around with a sense of superiority. That they deserve to drive better cars, earn more…purely based on the gender. Oh yes, hold on, I’m forgetting something: Yes, that’s it! They also think that God distributed intelligence based on our anatomies.
Hell, can I please start getting paid for every time a guy is surprised that I know something about sports, or I know what is happening in the economy or in politics? And can I please get paid every time I try to have an engaging discussion with a guy and he ends up using the fact that he’s bigger than me to get into my space or yells in my face, or claims that I’m just a girl, I cannot possibly get it?
I have been told countless times that I’m too aggressive (men are of course not aggressive but assertive). I need to “tone down”. Hell, I’ve been told a few times that my “aggressiveness” is the reason I’m not in a relationship. And yes, I have also been told that the fact that once people look beyond the surface I tend to be a surprise. How I look and the fact that I can string two coherent thoughts together is apparently contradictory.
I have seen countless women play down their intelligence to make men around them feel comfortable. Women change teams, change the way they use language and morph into their boyfriends. Their partners opinions and point of view become superior to theirs and hell, is it any wonder that when that man meets women in the office space who will not change their nos to a yeses just because he, oh hallowed man, demands it he then becomes furious and petty?
For some reason I think most men would love to have the independent girl who is true to herself. They want the smart girl, but they also want the girl who is going to be submissive. The girl who will forget to have an opinion.
I don’t understand why there is no male equivalent for a slut or a whore. Or why for most of my life I’ve been told that men are liars by the very same women who are with them. Why do we have to different scales in society for acceptable behaviour for men and women?
Why are women who have abortions judged harshly by society while men neglect their pregnant girlfriends and go on pretending that they don’t have kids in every city are let off the hook as if it’s a lesser ill of society (I am waiting for fundamental Christians to start killing men who don’t pay child support)?
We’ve been told countless times as little girls that we must dream of a white wedding with a big white dress, getting married to prince charming who only rides in to save the day after Cinderella and Snow White have gone through hell to survive! What I’m saying with this is that young women get told that the reward of being a good girl is getting married. And the only thing men have to do is to ride in and save the day. Are these things equally attainable?
I won’t even get to the fact that I rarely ever hear of a bad step-dad, but I hear of a bad-step mom all the time. Men aren’t required to accept children that aren’t theirs with open arms while women are! After all, we are all natural nurturers. We must all cook, clean, birth and still look attractive while he can sit on the couch and be fed and get fat all he likes without lifting a finger to help you!
The more I grow in my career and in my life, the harder it become to convince me that men look at women as more than just objects created to do their bidding.
