As a woman, it makes sense that there is an intrinsic part of my being that champions female empowerment. I think such is the case for most women, however, i have come to notice there is a certain discrepancy in the understanding of the severity of gender apartheid, be it in its arguably hairsplitting Western form, or in it's most controversial and discernible form e.g the islamic world and 'gendercide' in countries such as India and China. Amongst this, however, there are theses to the contrary, that depict our failure to elucidate the insidious dangers of misandry and gynocentrism, coupled with extremist feminist movements that thwart the reciprocal nature of mutually beneficial gender niceties - arguably instrumental to the protection, safety and prosperity of women. Further, there is an oxymoronic weight to to the cyclic mystery of whether the system oppresses us or whether we are, indeed, the system that oppresses. The waves of feminism, in their idiosyncratic ways have also appeared to both help and hinder our social fabric, so it is no wonder that discourse still remains largely subject to pluralistic dissent. The tenebrious, yet sensitive tone of the dilemma evokes the need to question the veracity behind the myth of gender apartheid. Baring in mind, there is no single, universal truth, and it is subject to moral relativism which largely pertains to the diverse nature of cultural diacritics.
Before discussing it's key elements, it is necessary to backslide on the evolutionary scale and understand the precursor to the feminist movement(s). There is understandably heavy discord around the topic of whether gender-specific behaviours are inherent or learnt. While Darwinism may not provide answers to gender inequality, it suffices to explain that all animal life is programmed to evolve in a way that befits it's own species (until intelligence surpasses inclination). So this may elicit assumptions on how we initially assumed gender-specific roles. A brief study of ape behaviour can give us enough insight to the rudimentary form of animal interaction, and is surprisingly highly gendered. Males were seen to be more competitive whilst females more cooperative with a stronger utilitarian focus. Taking care not to administer entirely animal-based rituals to human society, we can appreciate that we are largely 'gendered' before intelligence serves to aggrandise those differences, and that these intrinsic tendencies can not be quelled by conflation.
One of the most largely observed gender-awry cultures is Islam. I started my research into this by exchanging some words with my mother (the source of all good research). She grew up in Iran - a notoriously oppressive post-revolutionary regime that handicaps female industrial germination and boasts a patriarchal tenure. Interestingly, however, amidst my research I had heard some looming rumbles from men who felt indignant to this 'false' testimony of female oppression and felt that, de facto, the opposite was true. So I asked my mother, "do you think gender equality exists in Iran?" (Bare in mind my initial question was 'do you think women are oppressed' to which she responded 'does that mean are they depressed?') but in cognisance of my query, she simply snorted and laughed. "They pretend to be equal but to the men in charge, women are just a piece of furniture. That's all." And in many ways - the evidence is damning. A large body of this falls under the rubric of coercive conduct. The social impositions that are obliged to a woman beyond her will. The most conspicuous of these - the rousari (veil), but this pales in comparison to the acquiesced barbarism that is emblematic of many such societies. The Qu'ran itself exclaims that -Qur'an (2:228) - "and the men are a degree above them [women]" so if the fundamental infrastructure of islamic society is predicated on the notion that women are the subsidiary sex, is it any wonder that the dehumanisation of women in these countries has come to be morally accepted, or at least mitigated? It is not only Islamic countries that exercise coercive conduct upon it's women. Lest we forget the 1 child policy in China that aggressively impedes the propagation of it's own species. It is even more distressing to learn that the law is relaxed if your first child is a girl (undesirable), you are permitted to try again for a boy. Should you not adhere to the family planning laws, it is likely that the expectant will be escorted to a forced abortion as late as 9 months into her pregnancy. The right to life is the most basic of civil rights and elicits an existential weight to the discourse, in that free will is axiomatic and the lack, thereof, defies existence. Forced abortion is akin to homicide, yet this unpalatable legislation is morally dumbed-down to befit an economic strategy.
In India, the situation is startlingly worse. In laymen's terms, girls are simply not deemed as cost effective - they do not provide financial security, instead simply serve to incur costs. The birth of a daughter is considered the expulsion of finances and the influx of hardship. A Telegu saying goes - "rearing a daughter is like watering a neighbours tree." At the time of marriage, a dowry must be secured to the husband's family as a conjugal fund. This is deemed as a financial burden upon the daughters family, and has thus lead to the mass epidemic 'gendercide', in this instance, the mass genocide of females through feticide and infenticide. It is usually done by suffocation, asphyxiation or poisoning of the milk. Not to mention dowry deaths, i.e. the beating, raping and abuse of women in order to extort a higher dowry. Women have essentially become pawns, bartered under patriarchal totality. The result is the utter dehumanisation of women through this shameful trafficking network, and yet still the Indian government turns a notoriously blind eye to the investigation of Dowry deaths, because the marginalization of women in these countries is not only morally admissible, but also ignorantly proliferated.
The notion of a preferred gender, a higher value on the life of a boy over a girl, is the crest in the patriarchal machine. It is mentality that is the precursor to the consequent social fabric. Education and adjustment of social customs are meagre food for thought in an epidemic that has lingered so stealthily under the radar. I do, however, question a nose-dive into radical feminism, or any form of radicalism for that matter. The feminist solution to most dilemmas is a heavy onus on the man to change. Whilst being rather unilateral in perspective, it is also tackling the symptoms over the cause. Further, in this instance it is often the women killing their own daughters, so attack on male mentality would prove redundant. What is needed is a passage of institutional and cultural edification that lends itself to the harmonious yin and yang balance of the sexes, securing mutual requisition. This can be achieved only through an adroit egalitarian, secularist movement in the Eastern world.
Image - "India: where a woman is killed every hour for dowry"
Whilst gendercide and the oppression of women in the aforementioned countries are ubiquitously regarded epidemics that can not be contested, there are stealthy rumblings in some Muslim countries, such as Iran, that portray a double-edged sword to what has been channeled in the media as patriarchal oppression - the story of misandry, which is often downplayed if not completely negated, and has resulted in the ossified illustration of men as wife-beating rapists. What's troubling here is the unilateral perspective in widely oppressive regimes such as Iran, where both men and women are prescribed archetypal gender roles, yet only women are sympathised with in feminist testimony. It is often argued that in some ways the system shows preferential treatment to women, who are entitled to 'mehireh' - money paid to the woman, by the man, in the instance of a divorce (if the money can not be paid, the man will go to jail). Sort of like an opposite-sex, opposite-conjugal dowry. While it is true that women may be well looked after in the monetary sense, almost mollycoddled, it once again comes at the price of social autonomy. There is very little she can do without the permission of her husband, and only so far she can excel before being stymied by glass ceilings. As per feminist motif, however, heavy misandry in the media is the tactful response, which serves only to satiate the divide and conquer ambition of the oppressive regime, and has procured a sentiment of dissidence amongst the two sexes who are growing increasingly disenchanted with each other. Oppression and feminism have fused into a hybrid superpower that is eliciting a war between the sexes.
The ideologies of extremist feminist groups are not only considered to be harmful vis a vis the aforementioned, but also impose dangers on the mentality of men and young boys alike. Men are being emasculated by the idea that being 'manly' is not acceptable in a new-age gender neutral society, with an incessant challenge on his virility. There is growing demoralisation amongst a culture of habitually denigrated men, which can only culminate detrimentally for the social zeitgeist. The focus is no longer on equality but on the faux premise of identicalness. It attempts a centripetal movement of the sexes - a regression to reductionism which essentially distorts the unique and complex phenomena that divide us. It is almost a communism of genders, instead of empowering women to match male-status, we are attenuating men into a median mode of gender-neutrality, where a careful counterbalance of power is deliberated - an ideological technique reminiscent of the Marxist 'Repressive Tolerance', in which the voice of dominant social groups is curtailed in order to remedy institutional oppression. I imagine that soon it will no longer be PC to refer to men and women in separate terms.
Misandry aside, it is not only the voice of men that is unheard in the foolhardy stampede of feminism. It is also, seemingly, the voice of women. During the Betty Friedan, second wave feminist movement, the state had at one point refused to acknowledge it's existence. It denied the oppression of women because it claimed 2/3rd's of women did not feel they were oppressed. The feminists, in turn, deemed them ignorant and implied an insidious and unconscious oppression. This which may well have been true, depending on how you look at it, however, it's concept surmises a somewhat monistic school of thought. Women who did not desire burgeoning careers in favour of motherhood complained that their intellectual capacity was challenged by feminists. While the liberating intention of feminism is admirable, It is ultimately shortsighted to assume women as a homogenous group of people. I will forever champion women who crave success and are crippled in a patriarchal order, but in the same breath, i believe the very fabric of feminism should be constructed with a cognisance of the dissenting temperament of women's desires. Some of our impulses are purely hedonistic, while others are propelled by biological instinct (i.e motherhood). Sometimes, biology is lost in the struggle for egalitarianism.
With that said, whether feminism is doing not enough or too much, what is certain is that we are not living in a state of social equality as is. It would be completely delusional to consider it so. The masses are hoodwinked by a glance at the bottom half of the social pyramid, which in the Western world mimics egalitarianism, however, sometimes one must think laterally to see what is right in front of us. As we travel up the pyramid, multi-ethnic, multi-gender contenders drop like flies. And of course, at the vertex of this pyramid sits the white man. The reality of the situation is that impregnable glass ceilings for non-male, non-white aspirants are initiated at around the half way mark, slowly bleeding into a 3/4 way cut off. I must, in this instance, commend the feminist movement for instigating questions that are finally placing the incalculable, undeserved privileges of the white man under heavy scrutiny.
All things considered, it is evident that the pervasive oppression of women still persists. The remedy for this, however, does not seem to lie in blind, extremist feminism which serves only to place restrictions on manliness and social conduct - tackling the symptoms over the cause. Just as the toughening of laws usually results in the upsurge of crime, so will the mentality of overwhelming extremism cause more dissidence than it does unity. Legislation does not cure ignorance, education cures ignorance. Rebuffing the man's prerogative to act and speak freely will only serve to dent social morale. What is needed is an equality that is bespoke to meeting our heterogenous needs. This can be achieved via a move towards edification through historical, social and political epistemology of the equality of the sexes without coalescing our beautifully idiosyncratic genders. We are, however, far from the realisation of this almost utopian objective. The bottom line is, as it stands, that one need only take a look around to see that it is a man's world. Ruled by men, built by men, for men.
- Elica Le Bon
