Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Response for "We Should All Be Feminists"

Response 1 / 24 / 2016 - “We Should All Be Feminists” - Madison Petri

With a name like, “Feminism,” it’s clear that the movement was established to help women. What is often overlooked is how feminism, with its goals to liberate human beings of gender roles, impacts men, too. Adiechie touches on this in her talk, where she refers to masculinity as a cage and femininity as something that shrinks a girl’s potential. She states that where she’s from, Nigeria, men have to be hard, tough, and that they can’t show emotion. Meanwhile, women have to sacrifice their own lives to be the perfect wives. 

Though not to the same degree necessarily, there are some parallels in the US, and these parallels negatively impact people that I know. I’ve noticed when I visit his home that my friend’s mother and father tend to reinforce gender roles at each other - almost like insults. His mom will berate his dad for not being able to lift something heavy and go into this tangent about how her mom and dad were perfect examples of traditional gender roles (though not in those words). Meanwhile, my friend’s father will mock his wife for getting “all dolled up” to go to the grocery store, or point out how many bottles of shampoo she has in her bathroom - essentially, mocking her femininity. I wonder, if gender roles didn’t exist, would there be this rift between them? 


“The problem with gender is that recognizes what we should be instead of what we are,” Adiechie states. I agree and would like to add on and say that the problem with getting recognition for gender roles is that people either don’t want to admit they exist or actually like the role enforced on them (which is okay, if it’s not enforced onto others).

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