Girl with Feminist Tendencies

In a tribute to the fact that a Hollywood version of my favourite trilogy have just been released in America, I have written a three part series on the issue of feminism, one which is a thread which runs through all three books. This is the first of the three-parter.

Upon reading two recent articles; one about the comments long time girlfriend of Stieg Larsson (Author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Eva Gabrielsson, made, and another about Christopher Hitchens; I have been pulled towards another topic which I am personally rather opinionated about: feminism.

Now, the rationality behind feminism is easy to comprehend. After being oppressed by men and treated like property for most of history, women feel the need to be empowered. And they very well should be. However, I feel that in this day and age, the methodologies employed by them makes the feminists’ cause a lost one.

Men took advantage of women in the earlier part of the previous millennium, claiming that it was god who created men as the greater sex. They point to their holy books, referring to the various passages which states as such. Now, with the modern society, we no longer follow such dogmas written by desert dwellers centuries ago. Our rationality have overcome such prejudices, and we now recognise that it was the culture of the desert dwellers which seeped into such holy books. Back at that time in history, people believed such things to be true. They believed that men were the owners of their wives, and that it was their god-given right to be so.

I fully disagree which such sentiments, and so have modern society. However, it appears that feminists are taking the other extreme. Feminists seem to take the stand of the far left: a position which implies that everyone, regardless of gender, race or ideology, should be treated equally and homogeneously. Whilst this may seem like a pure form of meritocracy, I argue that it is not. Similar to the reason why a doctor may use different drugs to people of different ethnicity, I feel that females should not be seen indifferent from males. Like how medicine reacts differently to those with different genetic code, the difference between the genetic makeup of the two genders should not be ignored for the sake of ‘equality’. A woman lifting a 100kg weight is far more impressive than a man doing the same. It is not sexism on my part; rather, the male body is built mainly to handle physical tasks, whilst doing energy-intensive work is merely secondary for females.

I am not saying that woman should be barred from doing physically dependent jobs. On the contrary, I feel that it is a woman’s right to choose the path if they deem it to be satisfactory. It is just that there are some gender-specific attributes nailed to our DNA which we cannot simply brush aside, like the fact that women are built to be the ‘receiver’ of humour rather than the jokers. Sure, there are many great female comedians out there. I for one love Sarah Millican and Shappi Khorsandi. However, they are merely anomalies.

Now, it is important for me to point out that this is not a matter of ‘it should be that way’. I am in no way implying that women should be those who laugh at jokes, or that they should be those who stay at home and be a housewife. The first is entirely up to the woman, and also the merit of how funny she actually is. The second would be the problem with culture; one which requires the societal mindset to be changed. But change would not come by ignoring certain facts which cannot be ignored. Rather, it requires us to first define our differences, before working our way towards a unprejudiced society.