Men Are Failing?

Since I was a teenager I was aware of the social philosophy of feminism. When I was in university, I was one of two guys in a class taking psychology of women. From the very beginning the concept of feminism was meaningless to me because the women in my family were not weak people. In no way were they second class citizens. During the Psychology of Women class, the professor would ask a question and en masse the female students would pivot to see what I would say ... expecting something male chauvinistic. When asked who prepared the meals in our family, they expected that I would say my mother. Instead it was during a period of time after my father retired from dairy farming, and had taken over the role of chief cook and bottle washer. Even during my teen years, I had that role as my sister was ill and my mother was with her at the hospital. Now while my parents are in their ending years, I have once again taken on that role (despite the fact I was never properly trained to do so).

One thing that people forget is history and replace what is true in current society into the past. When there is a clear difference, the idea of patriarchy gets bandied around. What people tend to forget is that one cannot measure the past using today's measuring stick. The ability to vote in Canada was initially limited to men. This ability had to do with ownership of property of a certain value and payment of taxes. For the time it was very rational. If you paid nothing in taxes, you didn't have the right to determine how it would be distributed.

With the technology that is now available, this could be reintroduced. If a person pays taxes, he or she should be able to go to the government website and specify how it would be allocated.

This ignorance of the past also is contributed to by the narrative that feminists have. One of the first women's movements was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. It was a movement which seemed to have sprung up internationally almost simultaneously around 1874. However the antecedent for the Canadian movement had its inspiration in 1837 when one of the founders of the women's movement signed a temperance pledge which her childhood male teacher had conceived and drawn up himself. The point isn't that it is a "women's" movement but that it had its foundation in the combined female and male psyche at the time. From this base of the temperance movement came later drives (suffragettes etc.). It must be remembered that Canada did not become a country until 1867 but women did not have the responsibility of paying property taxes until 1885.

The current movement of feminism has perhaps gone a step too far. While historically it was a question of defining rights and responsibilities it has taken away the rights of parenthood. In some cases (withholding medical treatment, education etc.) it is more than justifiable. What about the case of women who choose to raise their children. I am guilty of this attitude myself. When in university, I pooh poohed one of my female acquaintances because she had a clear plan of motherhood and family over career. Even within the last few years, I questioned another acquaintance's plan of having a child at a young age ... before being financially secure.