If one existed, would you go back in time and change your life? If you did what would you change? Would the butterfly effect be true, and if so what impact would it have on those around you?
Life is a funny thing. Often we make decisions without knowing their true consequences, and then for the rest of our lives we are forced to live those consequences. Some are positive.
Some are not so positive.
If I had a time machine, there are somethings I would want to do differently, but how do I determine a starting point, without having a detrimental effect on those that I care about?
I don't know the answer to that question. And I dont have a time machine either.
But what I do have is right now. This very second. This very minute. This very hour.
I don't have to go back in time to try and rectify my mistakes.
I can begin this very moment.
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Wednesday 12 August 2009
Thursday 6 August 2009
The Marginalization of Men
Let me begin this by saying the oppression of women throughout history is wrong. To deprive them of a voice and not give them a vote is wrong. To feel and treat them as worth less than men due to their sex is wrong. There is no excuse or justification for how they have been treated. Having established this, I hope that any women reading this will keep that in the back of their minds and hopefully see the point that I am trying to make. I would also like to make it clear that for the sake of brevity I am not elaborating on a lot of things.
It is my assertion that with the feminism and its associated brand of equality, that men have become displaced and increasingly been pushed to the margins of society to the point that it is necessary to take a long hard look at gender roles within society and either return or redefine them.
This all begins with women gaining, and rightly so, the vote. However it is not this alone, it goes hand in hand with them gaining education, the right to work, equal pay etc etc without addressing or looking how these will impact on roles within society. Any of these rights on their own would not have caused a dramatic shift in the status quo, and as said some were rightly needed but the culminated effect of all of these would in turn have a catastrophic effect on society as we know it.
As women gained more and more rights feminism cultivated the mentality that men were not needed or obsolete. After all if a woman wanted something, she could get it for herself. And as for reproduction, isn't that what sperm banks and IVF were created for? This poses the question about men: What is their role? It is no longer one of provider. Women earn their own pay checks. It was no longer as protector; as they now vote and are treated as equals. It was no longer as father to a woman's children because now fathers are not essential to the process.
This insular approach that has developed is not limited to women. As women became more insular and believing in the idea that they could do it all alone, men's belief that they were redundant grew, and out of this feeling of being obsolete the idea that they only needed to concentrate on themselves and their own desires grew even greater. (Under the previous status quo men were very much focused on their own desires, this was simply exagerated because of the break down in traditional roles). So faced with both genders concentrating on themselves, the gulf between the sexes grew greater, and this translated even into relationships.
Now the belief is that you can have a relationship where the focus is the individual, and yet you are truly a 'couple' as opposed to simply two individuals that made the decision to live under the same roof and sleep in the same bed. This means that both people feel they can have a career and their home life will not suffer. That both people can lead seperate lives and the bond between them will not grow any weaker. The reality of society today however does not bear these concepts to be true. We are plagued with children that have no supervision. After school they are left to their own devices, nobody is home to help them with their home work. Nobody is home to provide them guidance. Nobody is at home to take the most basic of interest in them. (Admittedly sometimes it is both parents work out of necessity to pay the bills, but many times both work to achieve material dreams that are not essential and are achieved at the detriment of their children.)
It is my belief that the roles that men and women stem from the critical difference between them: namely the fact that one can bear children, where as the other cannot. Logically it would make sense that as there would be periods throughout a woman's life where she could not have children, that she would take care of the home and the man, able to work all year round would do so. However with the changes in society and laws, along with the introduction of maternity pay this is no longer necessary and as such it may be necessary to look at and redefine the gender roles. I am not saying that men should necessarily return to being the bread winners and that women should be pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen. Perhaps it may make more sense to reverse the roles especially in light of maternity pay. What I do believe is that there is a need for the traditional roles of provider and care giver to be maintained as they will help address many of the societal problems that we face today, but whether they are established based on sex or another criteria... that is not a question for me to answer.
It is my assertion that with the feminism and its associated brand of equality, that men have become displaced and increasingly been pushed to the margins of society to the point that it is necessary to take a long hard look at gender roles within society and either return or redefine them.
This all begins with women gaining, and rightly so, the vote. However it is not this alone, it goes hand in hand with them gaining education, the right to work, equal pay etc etc without addressing or looking how these will impact on roles within society. Any of these rights on their own would not have caused a dramatic shift in the status quo, and as said some were rightly needed but the culminated effect of all of these would in turn have a catastrophic effect on society as we know it.
As women gained more and more rights feminism cultivated the mentality that men were not needed or obsolete. After all if a woman wanted something, she could get it for herself. And as for reproduction, isn't that what sperm banks and IVF were created for? This poses the question about men: What is their role? It is no longer one of provider. Women earn their own pay checks. It was no longer as protector; as they now vote and are treated as equals. It was no longer as father to a woman's children because now fathers are not essential to the process.
This insular approach that has developed is not limited to women. As women became more insular and believing in the idea that they could do it all alone, men's belief that they were redundant grew, and out of this feeling of being obsolete the idea that they only needed to concentrate on themselves and their own desires grew even greater. (Under the previous status quo men were very much focused on their own desires, this was simply exagerated because of the break down in traditional roles). So faced with both genders concentrating on themselves, the gulf between the sexes grew greater, and this translated even into relationships.
Now the belief is that you can have a relationship where the focus is the individual, and yet you are truly a 'couple' as opposed to simply two individuals that made the decision to live under the same roof and sleep in the same bed. This means that both people feel they can have a career and their home life will not suffer. That both people can lead seperate lives and the bond between them will not grow any weaker. The reality of society today however does not bear these concepts to be true. We are plagued with children that have no supervision. After school they are left to their own devices, nobody is home to help them with their home work. Nobody is home to provide them guidance. Nobody is at home to take the most basic of interest in them. (Admittedly sometimes it is both parents work out of necessity to pay the bills, but many times both work to achieve material dreams that are not essential and are achieved at the detriment of their children.)
It is my belief that the roles that men and women stem from the critical difference between them: namely the fact that one can bear children, where as the other cannot. Logically it would make sense that as there would be periods throughout a woman's life where she could not have children, that she would take care of the home and the man, able to work all year round would do so. However with the changes in society and laws, along with the introduction of maternity pay this is no longer necessary and as such it may be necessary to look at and redefine the gender roles. I am not saying that men should necessarily return to being the bread winners and that women should be pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen. Perhaps it may make more sense to reverse the roles especially in light of maternity pay. What I do believe is that there is a need for the traditional roles of provider and care giver to be maintained as they will help address many of the societal problems that we face today, but whether they are established based on sex or another criteria... that is not a question for me to answer.
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