Monday, February 16, 2015

The Issue of Equality



Feminism is once again up and coming. Many women are finally learning that the word “feminism” is in fact not a synonym for “men hater”. I personally think that this is great news,  not only for women but also for men, as the equality of the sexes should also benefit them a great deal. The question here of course is: how far does this equality go? Both socially and politically. Should men and women also have completely equal treatment under the law? Or is this already true for our country?
     I do believe that men and women ought to be equal under the law, but only to a certain degree. We always need to keep into account that men and women are, and will always be biologically different from each other. Therefore it is impossible to see them as equals in some cases. However, especially in cases of child custody, females often have the unfair advantage of being seen as natural care givers and will therefore often win these lawsuits.
Cases such as these should be evaluated with a more unbiased eye. More equality under the law would in a lot of cases be more beneficial for men, or at least it will not set their equality back.
     With that in mind I don’t think even the new group the so-called “meninists” could object to more equality under the law. Meninists are the kind of men whose first reaction to equality between the sexes is: “Does this mean we can hit women now?” Many men (and women too) think that feminists are out to make their lives miserable, to make women superior over men. Some say the fight for equality is not much needed anymore, but those people don’t look beyond our Western World.  It is true we have it fairly good here, but think about women in third-world countries. Think about young women forced into marriage, or being denied education. If you don’t think we need feminism, than at least be a feminist for them.
     Having said that, I don’t think our law makes men and women very unequal in our country, I believe it is much more a social issue rather than an issue of the law. At least not in this country.