Is Sexism a Myth?

Everybody at some point in their lives has felt like a victim of sexism. Everybody. Men and women. We all feel like we are the sex that has been treated unfairly.

Women often feel as though they have been treated unfairly, not just in years gone by but even now in our modern world. Some common examples of how women may feel wronged include the fact that for centuries they were not given the right to vote, in today's society women often get paid less for doing the same jobs as men, the threat of rape may often affect how a woman dresses or where she travels alone, the rate of domestic violence against women are far higher than of women towards men and a lot of women and girls feel objectified and insecure due to the enormous amount of pornography and sex in the media.

These arguments are fair and valid and I will be the first to agree that it is a positive thing that society is changing  in order to treat women more fairly, but are women the only victims of sexism? I've done blog posts before on how men can also be victims so I won't go into a lot of detail about this, but a lot of men feel like they are unfairly portrayed as violent thugs who go around beating their wives up and preventing women from achieving anything in life. They are socialised into living up to a hugely masculine stereotype, told "boys don't cry" and pressured into objectifying women and proving their strength by getting into fights. They also complain that male waiters or bar staff don't get tipped as often, pretty girls will often get served first at bars and taking an interest in fashion will result in them being dubbed as a "fag" or not a "real man".

These lists are by no means exhaustive and I'm not going to go out of my way to prove any of what I've said with studies or statistics because that isn't really what this blog is about. It isn't about arguing who gets treated the worst in society. I don't know who gets treated the worst. Being born a man OR a woman comes with consequences and hardship and it is not my place to discuss who comes off worst. I don't know enough about Sociology or History to try and do that.

What I AM trying to propose though, is that perhaps some distinction between the sexes is necessary. My personal beliefs are that some feminists take things too far when they try and assert that women are as good as man at everything and so should be treated in the same way in every area of their lives. Both sexes have their strengths and weaknesses and these things are determined by biology. For example, women naturally have curvaceous bodies to attract men. We have soft skin, wide hips and breasts to attract the opposite sex, so why do some women seem to believe that being objectified as sex objects is something invented by men? Women have evolved to, effectively, be sex objects. The whole point of our appearance is to attract a mate, someone that wants to have sex with us so that we can reproduce. Women being sexually attractive is a natural phenomenon, and the urge to wear slinky dresses and tight skirts is surely just the modern way of doing this?

It's also clear that men are built differently. They have narrow hips, wide shoulders and are generally stronger than women. It stands to reason, then, that on the whole, most men will be better equipped for strenuous manual labour than women. Women have the ability to work out and train their bodies to be able to do the tasks as well as men can, but most men are NATURALLY stronger than women, so how is it sexist that they offer to do the trickier jobs?

Then there's the hormone differences. Testosterone makes men more sexual and aggressive than women. Its a fact. Now, this is just a wild guess, but is it so unreasonable to assume that the reason for this is so that men are able to fight and protect their wives and children from danger, and that their sex drive urges them to go in search of women, who just happen to be curvy and attractive? It's all about carrying on the human race. Women are the more attractive sex - men have higher sex drives. Women are usually physically weaker than men - men are stronger and more aggressive in order to keep them safe.

This isn't sexism! This is beautiful! This is nature evolving perfectly to accommodate both sexes and ensure that everybody is safe and that nature continues to multiply and bloom. Now of course people will be asking "Why couldn't we all be strong and then women wouldn't need to be protected?" which is, of course, a valid point. But think about what an unpleasant place the world would be if everybody was aggressive and strong? These are men's strengths, but women also have strengths. Oestrogen makes women more emotional, and studies on language and psychoanalysis have generally concluded that women are more emotionally focused and empathetic than men. Women smooth over situations by talking things through and being diplomatic. If these qualities didn't exist than the world would be a constant war zone.

I know that both sexes get treated unfairly sometimes, and I will be the first to stand up for people not being discriminated against based on their sex, but there are some aspects of our sex than are fixed and simply cannot be made equal to those of the opposite. This isn't society being sexist and trying to limit people to what they should do with regards to career and family: it's merely nature clearly pointing us in the direction that works most efficiently.

For further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism

(I am aware that none of this blog is backed up with statistics and that I have made some quite strong assertions that I have no doubt people will have some objection to. The only source I have used to write this blog is the A Level education I've received in "Gender in Psychology" and "Language and Gender in English Language". I've also touched on some ideas that my friends and acquaintances have come up with. Male friends of mine that feel like they are being treated unfairly because they're stereotyped as violent sex addicts and female friends who accept the mistreatment of women in society but who aren't ashamed of wearing short dresses and styling their hair every Friday night. It's not supposed to be a journal article that you can use in your essays and debates. It's my opinion, and I'm writing this for myself more than anyone else so if you want to go and find some statistics to disprove me then go for it, but don't expect me to do your research for you.)