The title of this opinion piece may raise your eyebrows, but if you take a deep breath, keep an open mind, and read to the end, you will be in agreement with me. Also, to be clear, I’m very impressed by all genders, and my observations do not reflect any specific biases.
That being said, in today’s world, women are, by and large, the ones who uphold patriarchy, especially in Africa. This is self-evident from the way boys are raised by their mothers, with all the pressures and expectations heaped on them from a very young age. In the utopic, equal society we clamor for, men would be a lot happier because the bag of expectations they carry right from childhood would be taken off their shoulders. As the iconic Indian actress, Rathna Pathak Shah, puts it, “patriarchy is hard on men as well as on women. We need to get rid of the root cause of it and find new ways of looking at society”.
A major reason men chase after achievements, accomplishments and financial security is to ensure that the women (mothers, sisters, and spouses) in their lives are well taken care of. If a man stops chasing after these things, he loses his attractiveness to women. In fact, women and children can be loved unconditionally, but when it comes to men, they are only loved based on what they can bring to the table. When most women use the phrase, “… and you call yourself a man”, it is not based on the man’s inability to use his sexual organs, but on his inability to use his hands to provide for the needs (and wants) of his partner.
Men usually say that they can’t get married until they are financially stable because they understand the financial responsibilities take come with marriage and raising children. But when a woman says the same thing, it is not usually because they think it’s needed to sustain a marriage. It is usually just their personal goal. In fact, some wives who earn a living just like their husbands will say or imply, “ my money is mine, while my husband’s money is for the entire family”.
A woman may be attracted to a man based on his physical appearance, but that’s just at the beginning. As the relationship progresses, it doesn’t matter if you have the sexiness of Denola Grey, or the physique of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a woman will most likely dump you and settle for a man that’s twice her age, so long he has a heavy bank account. Only a very small percentage of women can remain with a man who is not financially stable.
Meanwhile, when it comes to women who are the breadwinners of their households, they never say it like it’s a thing to be proud of. Whenever such women are mentioned, you will most likely hear “useless husband” or something of that nature in the conversation. In fact, the chances are high that a man would not be given a shred of respect in a house where the wife is the breadwinner. These women tend to remain in the marriage because of their children, religious and societal pressure.
So, when a man realizes that his attractiveness, value, and self-worth is tied to his ability to provide for his family, he is bound to run after those things that will make him a provider. Sometimes, even at the detriment of his happiness and health. This is why most men are unhappy when they are unable to provide for their families. They can detest the job they do, complain about the traffic situation on their way to and from work, and even be owed salaries for months, but they keep on working anyways because the women in their lives (and sometimes strange women) will call them useless or broke-shame them without it. This was why the American feminist academic and social critic, Camille Paglia, said, “men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters.”
How do women that measure a man’s worth and attractiveness by money be the same people that cry “patriarchy” when they know that in many instances, money equals power? How can women not see anything wrong with the “anon” trend on social media in which able-bodied women depend on anonymous men for lunch and dinner? How can you expect to be “equal” with someone you are dependent on for your three-square meals? And do not hold onto the straw arguments that women are not given opportunities to thrive and be independent because that will be based on fiction and not facts.
The fact is, while women did not have the opportunity of getting quality education in yesteryears, things have tremendously improved in favor of women over time. In fact, if you do a Google search of the keyword “Boys Education” you won’t see any fundraising, donation or aid call-to-action for boys education in the first 200 search results (20 pages) of Google; yet, according to Our World in Data, there are about 3 million more out-of-school boys than girls.
On the flip side, if you do a Google search of the keyword “Girls Education”, just the first 20 search results (2 pages) in Google has about 13 fundraising/donation call-to-action. What most of these donor agencies and NGOs do is that they never juxtapose both boys’ and girl’s statistics in pushing their narrative. So, ordinarily, when someone sees that there are about 130 million out-of-school girls in the world, they’d be alarmed and sometimes push the blame on patriarchy. If only they would care to research about the 133 million out-of-school boys, then they would know that boys have equally alarming educational problems too.
Also, if you look at scholarships, internships, and job opportunities, you will see tons of them are specifically for girls, while there is rarely any specifically for boys.
Now that these facts have been broken down, and put in proper perspective, I ask again: why are women still overly dependent on men and then blame “patriarchy”?
We still see this over-dependence of women on men even after a divorce. According to Forbes, there are about 400,000 cases of alimony in the United States, and only 3% of these are for men. That means 97% of those women still depend on men even after severing all marital ties.
The bitter truth is, patriarchy will remain as long as men are only loved when they are well-to-do financially. As long as women keep on evaluating the usefulness of a man based on how much money he has, do not expect men not to be super competitive against women in the workplace. Granted, women are competitive. But when a man feels like his life depends on it, he will be willing to go above and beyond to achieve his goals in the workplace, even if it sometimes means being aggressive and domineering to women. Men do not necessarily strive to get to the peak of their career just for the fun of it, but because these same women who they are competing with in the workplace will not give them a second glance within or outside the workplace if they don’t have their pockets lined with cash and their cabinets stocked with plaques and certificates. So, when you see only men (or with few women) at the managerial positions in an organization, it is usually because of a society (women) that attaches a man’s worth to his achievements, money, and influence.
In all of these, am I saying some women haven’t been oppressed, victimized, ignored, and relegated to a sub-class of human existence? By all means, NO! But as Justine Musk once said, “the enemy of feminism isn’t men. It’s patriarchy, and patriarchy is not men. It is a system, and women can support the system of patriarchy just as men can support the fight for gender equality.”
Let’s hear your thoughts as you use the comment section!
