Feminism, Its Misconceptions, and Its Relevance Modern feminism, also termed third-wave feminism, is a much-required societal component. A common argument against feminism is the animal kingdom in which female apes worship male apes, but division of gender simply can not follow this trend, for humanity requires more civilized thinking (Berlatsky, Noah). Today’s existing culture restrains women and men through learned behaviors, gender roles, and institutional sexism. Men and women have certain expectations reliant on their gender, and while society encourages specific gender roles, statistics prove that while society has evolved, our ideas of gender have not. Depending on gender, people are expected to perform certain tasks. Furniss,
…show more content…
Oxford Dictionary (OD) used “rabid feminists” as an example for the word rabid. Initially OD defended their use of the example. Other gender-charged examples include: shrill – “the rising shrill of the woman’s voice”, psyche – “I will never really fathom the female psyche”, grating – her high grating voice, and nagging – a nagging wife. After some fire from social media sites, Oxford representatives tweeted that they would review the examples (Faircloth, Kelly). Misogyny is used as a weapon against everyone. All are controlled by it. Misogyny does not only apply to women but to femininity. A man who exhibits any level of femininity is also under fire (Filipovic, Jill). Due to the emphasis on masculinity, men have developed fragile egos. We then in turn tell our daughters they must “shrink themselves”. Women can not possess too many powerful qualities. If she does she will threaten the man (Adichie, Chimamanda). Jean Beathke Elshtain points out during recruitment times for armed forces the threat of being “unmanly” is used as its own weapon. Men feel they must fight – and die – like men (Filipovic, Jill). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ends with a call-to-action, “We must raise our daughters more like our sons differently. We must also raise our sons differently. We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity becomes this small hard cage, and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear. We teach boys to be afraid of weakness, of vulnerability… they have to be… ‘hard man’” (Adichie,
Oxford Dictionary (OD) used “rabid feminists” as an example for the word rabid. Initially OD defended their use of the example. Other gender-charged examples include: shrill – “the rising shrill of the woman’s voice”, psyche – “I will never really fathom the female psyche”, grating – her high grating voice, and nagging – a nagging wife. After some fire from social media sites, Oxford representatives tweeted that they would review the examples (Faircloth, Kelly). Misogyny is used as a weapon against everyone. All are controlled by it. Misogyny does not only apply to women but to femininity. A man who exhibits any level of femininity is also under fire (Filipovic, Jill). Due to the emphasis on masculinity, men have developed fragile egos. We then in turn tell our daughters they must “shrink themselves”. Women can not possess too many powerful qualities. If she does she will threaten the man (Adichie, Chimamanda). Jean Beathke Elshtain points out during recruitment times for armed forces the threat of being “unmanly” is used as its own weapon. Men feel they must fight – and die – like men (Filipovic, Jill). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ends with a call-to-action, “We must raise our daughters more like our sons differently. We must also raise our sons differently. We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity becomes this small hard cage, and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear. We teach boys to be afraid of weakness, of vulnerability… they have to be… ‘hard man’” (Adichie,