Aurelio, Maria Maridel B.

2013-19729

Soc Sci 2 | 17 September 2014

On Feminism and Public Life

By definition, feminism advocates that women should be allowed the same rights, power,
and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way.1 In my opinion, however, feminism is
an unjust and obsolete ideology despite its postive aims.
Feminism does not cater to the common good.
St. Thomas defines law as something made by someone who has authority of a city for the
common good so that everyone who are part of that city will benefit from it. If a certain
movement in the society is allowed to have its aims implemented, it should then benefit the
common good as well. However, the ideas of feminism are targeted towards the benefit of the
women. Although it is a good thing that it aims to achieve equality among men and women, it
limits itself to the assumption that only women experience oppression, discrimination, and
inequality in the society. Men, too, experience domestic violence that are left unspoken and
unheard of by the public. Men make up about 40 percent of all domestic violence cases.
Moreover, 64 percent of domestic violence calls made by men to hotlines were turned away with
statements saying that the hotline only assisted women. 2 I once saw a video of a social
experiment set in a public place where a male and female actor alternately took the role of
berating and physically hurting each other. People were angered upon seeing a man hit and
shout at a woman, but looked rather amused and even praised the woman when she was the
violent one.
Feminism assumes that there are only two genders.
In my opinion, the worst thing about the idea of feminism is that it views gender as a blackand-white concept, i.e, a person can only be a man or a woman, and not to be in between or
assume the identity of the opposite gender. In this case, feminism tends to discrimate people
who do not belong to either of these orientations. I personally regard gender as an irrelevant and
obsolete concept in our society nowadays. I do not see the point of labelling a person male or
female, straight or not straight. I believe that we cannot, in any way, really identify a
person as a male or female, let alone set rigidly specific standards to know who is which.
Gender is fluid and cannot be controlled, and only we ourselves can identify our gender identity
which remains an important concept.
Men and women are already equals.
In my opinion, there is no point in forming a movement that aims to make men and women
equals, because they are already equals in the first place. They are equipped with unique skills
and physiques for them to carry out different tasks in the society. The aggressiveness of men
does not automatically equate to them being able to do more, and the subtlety of women does not
immediately make them weak.
1
2

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/feminism
http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/domestic-violence-men-are-victims-too/