In the current wave of world events, it may be surprising to see me write this. After all, I am female. I should be at the forefront of the movement, waving my banner eagerly. Well, after much thought and observation, I finally concluded and formed my thoughts on feminism.
Feminism, by popular definition, is a range of political movements – ideologies and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish and achieve political, economic, personal and social equality of sexes. A feminist believes and strives for equality of the sexes and, for this reason I step off the train, because I do not think this is a war that needs to be fought in the first place.
I do not believe that males and females are the same. For equality to be achieved the items compared should be the same; the playing field should be leveled. A lemon is not and can never be equal to a lime, because they were never created to strive for equality in the first place. They may look similar, but at their core they are different entities. The same goes with males and females.
I do not understand when people try to force themselves to take the role of another sex, all under the umbrella of equality
We are all humans, but each sex has its distinctions. Down to chromosomes, males and females are not the same; males are 46XY and females are 46XX, the genetic differences manifesting in our external appearance as males or females. Each sex is created to be different from the other. I’m not only talking about reproductive organs or the predominant sex hormones, but also in the rest of the various body systems, down to the orientation of our bones, males and females, though largely similar, have some peculiar characteristics.
It is not a misconception that males and females think differently. Very differently. Males mostly tend to excel in highly task-focused projects, think more rationally, and are problem-solving oriented. Most females are emotional thinkers, good multi-taskers and are better at expressing their emotions. Various studies prove all this. I understand that there will be exceptions to this, as with every study ever done, but this speaks for the majority.
Males and females cannot occupy the same roles in the exact same capacity on a social level. There are just some things that most males can handle better due to their behavioural make-up, and there are issues in the society that most women can solve better because of the way they think. It’s just the way it is. This is why I do not understand when people try to force themselves to take the role of another sex all under the umbrella of ‘equality’. Then there are the ‘Twitter feminists’, who are another reason I choose not to associate with the word. I’m not even going to dive into that right now, that’s for a whole other blog.
By now, you already know that I do not believe the possibility of equality. However, I believe that equity is achievable. I have often seen these words interchangeably used, which I deem a bit erroneous, maybe some do not really grasp the
difference.
I’ll explain the two words in this example. Supposing you are a caregiver of four children and you have N200. All these children want to go see a movie and each ticke costs N100. These children all have some money with them but not enough to buy the tickets – child A has N70, child B has N90, child C has N40 and child D has N30. You are to supplement their money. If you were to share it equally, you would just give each of them N50. Child A & B will have enough to pay for the tickets, but not child C & D. However, if you were to share it equitably, you would ask each child what they had and give them what they needed to make it to N100. So child A gets N30, child B gets N10, child C gets N60 and child D gets N70. So at then end all the children will watch the movie.
This is the difference. Equality is treating everyone the same. Equity is giving everyone an opportunity to achieve the same goal.
Before one is a male or a female, one is first a human being, deserving every right that a human should have. We all have the right to life, to education, to work and be paid, to social security, to food and shelter, to affordable housing, to medical care amongst many. Due to some longstanding societal belief systems there are/were areas where one sex is/was at a disadvantage of having these opportunities. Because of a culture that was in place one sex had lesser chance of achieving the same goal.
That’s where equity comes in, looking at every one specifically and giving him/she the chance to achieve his/her potentials. It is for this reason that I applaud the Women’s Rights Movement, the extraordinary dedicated work and sacrifice of these amazing women in the past and present have leveled the path for us today. Now, in almost all places in the world, women are paid the same as men who work the same job they do; more women are having access to medical care, killing female children is slowly becoming a thing of the past. These women worked to promote an equal opportunity to human rights between the two sexes. Truth be told, this was what I understood to be the real purpose of feminism, not a lot of what is being said today. There’s just so much misconception and erroneous ideologies surrounding the movement. I think that life is so much more than labelling yourself this or that. Beyond mere talk, it’s more about actually being an agent of positivity in your own sphere of influence.
This is what I believe in. There are so many serious issues in the world that supercede arguments on who should pay for the date or who should hold the door for who, which is what some brands of feminism, unfortunately, have come to these days. I know not everyone will agree with me, and that’s okay. We are all entitled to our own opinion.
So I’m not a feminist, because I do not believe in the totality of what it has come to stand for
today.
Ada Anatune is a 500-Level medical student of Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun State. She can be reached via her email: adaanatune@yahoo.com
