Why 'Feminism' is important for MEN as well?

Feminism is an ideology which believes that there should be political, economic and social equality between men and women. So even though the word feminism is derived from the word female, it does not mean that women are given more power than men. There is another word for that, matriarchy. This is equivalent of patriarchy. Men are considered superior to women in patriarchy. In matriarchy, women are considered superior to men. But feminism means that there is no discrimination between the two genders. A men can also be considered as a feminist. Former US president Barack Obama once wrote an essay in which he called himself a feminist. Several famous male celebrities openly call themselves feminist, like Hollywood actors Chris Hemsworth, Ryan Gosling.

But there are many women that have these patriarchal ideologies. It is all due to social conditioning. There are many reasons for such patriarchal views all over the world, like 'this is our tradition', 'our culture' or 'our religion teaches us this'.

There are some people who say that feminism is useless. "How can male and female be equal." Their argument is that "men and women have different anatomies. Men can't give birth to children. So how can they be equal." These arguments are very illogical. It is true that in male and female anatomy is a bit different but there are atleast 80- 85 percent organs that are same in male and female anatomy. It is true that gender is different but it is not like women belong to a different species. Both are Homo sapiens. To get equal rights, you do not have to be equal, you need to be similar.

" Nature creates difference but it doesn't discriminate. Nature makes diversity but not hierarchy, not inequality." Kamla Bhasin

Women and men are not totally similar, but there are small differences in everyone if compared to other person.

The feminist struggle is not a men versus women scenario rather it is about patriarchal people versus feminist people. And this is not just a fight for equal rights for women, but also a fight for the rights of men.

Patriarchy is the reason behind many men's issues. If I ask you to imagine 'an unemployed youth', what picture did you imagine? You must have imagined a jobless man and not a woman. This is because, in our society, we often see that if a girl is jobless then she can still be married but if a man is jobless than that becomes very problematic. The pressure of not being employed is much higher for man than for women.

The patriarchal mindset does not allow a man to cry. It a man cries, society mocks him. Patriarchal thinking does not let man express any negative emotions. Men's loneliness is also due to patriarchy. Men are deprived of emotional intelligence which leads to higher suicide rate in males than that of females. That's why when feminist say 'smash the patriarchy' it doesn't mean that they are against men. Patriarchy is destroying the lives of both men and women.

Feminism doesn't mean that women smoke, drink or objectify men. Drinking alcohol doesn't equate to women empowerment, but the problem is when a man drinks alcohol, it affects his liver. But when a women drinks then it becomes a character certificate for her.

'When a feminist say that they want to be independent, it doesn't mean that they don't want a men in their life, both male and female need to be independent so that all the responsibility or burden of earning is not only on one person .

When a feminist say that they want to be independent, it means that if their partner leave them or any unfortunate situation happens, then they do not have to rely on anyone else.

Obviously both male and female need support of each other to grow and this support could be emotional or financial.

This is what we really mean, when we say, we want to be independent.'