Global Issue: How women continues to battle for equality within a patriarchal society, which is built on misogyny and male supremacy.
There has been more awareness and changes made regarding gender equality in modern societies, where women have been speaking up more in what they believe, and more female representatives rise in politics and communities. There are many way which women have been speaking up, for example the #metoo movement, a movement against sexual harassment and assault of women – since for a long time, women who reported any harassment were often disregarded because many societies were built on this idea of male supremacy and people believe men more. What I would be focusing on is the overall concept behind patriarchal societies, the perspectives behind it and how it has progressed over time.
The reason why this idea of a patriarchal society has been around for so long is because it was natural to most people around the world, and wasn’t identified as a concept. This is because so many laws, poems, religious books, history, scientific texts and more were written by men – who were mostly writing for the benefit of men. With their access to higher education than women, they had the pen in their hands and that meant they had the power to express their misogynistic views, and transform social norms. Becuase of this, the idea of women conforming to male rules also became a cultural norm to many cultures in the world – those whom we call people with “traditional views”. Not only the men, but many women who normalised toxic masculinity behaviours subjected to the patriarchal conditioning – bringing down other females by making nasty comments, slut-shaming, being cold towards those who don’t abide with male expectations and rather do what they want to do. This male supremacy has been existing in the expense of female basic rights and equality – with traditions, cultures, religion and education playing a role in expressing similar views, it makes it difficult for these women to battle for their own freedom.
Additionally, a patriarchal society that is built on misogynistic views leads to expectations in the role of women in society. Women have these expectations and rules which they must conform to based on male standards – and if they’re being ‘disobedient’, they’re bad people, and a disgrace to society. Misogyny, is defined as the hatred towards women, which has lead to inequality in communities, politics, economics and society. For example, there have been issues with unfair pay gaps between male and female workers who do the same jobs. Not only that, it has been a ‘woman’s job’ to do all the housework, and were expected to stay at home and take care of the children and that was their sole purpose in life. They had to care for the men who came back home from work, and do as they say and if they didn’t do so, they were hated and looked down on constantly. There was also this belief that women are not as capable as men, and if they show their true emotions they are being pathetic or unreasonable. Becuase of this misogynistic views and male superior behaviour, women has to tolerate it and must act according to what society says is right and wrong – and this is where other issues came from. Issues such as body image, females being objectified, etc. Women became sexualised in advertisements, where appearance is the only thing that mattered and if a woman didn’t look a certain way or had a certain body type, she would be lead to believe she’s too ugly and too incapable.
This photo is from a New York Times article, “What does Misogyny Look Like?”. This woman was attempting to join a marathon because she wanted to, but was getting pushed off the course but the male participants because when this photo was taken, women were not allowed to participate in marathons. This shows how those who made the rules made sure it benefited the men, and perhaps they were afraid to admit that women can be better at certain things too, and they wanted to stand their ground in male superiority.
