Feminism over the years has empowered women in so many ways, and I am so glad and grateful that I have the opportunity to attend college and make my dreams come true. I am also glad that I am not being forced into the life of a submissive housewife role that existed pre 60s; I have a choice to take on that role if I so choose. However there are some aspects of feminism that I really feel have disabled or negatively affected women over the years and are especially evident today.
The feminist movement of the United States was meant to empower and bring about equality; but I have come to the conclusion that it has in fact made the playing field uneven. In making women and men semi-equal in the work place and through the "sexual liberation" of women, feminism has taken a great deal of responsibility off of men.
On the subject of sex and sexual relations, feminism has essentially allowed men to have their way with whomever they wish without being chastised or marginalized because women have the freedom to choose partners as well, and so sex is now a shared responsibility. While some women do have male like sex drives and enjoy the freedom to have such liberal relations I think that these kinds of relations are damaging to most women in the dating world and even those in monogamous relationships. Because of the freedom, men tend to have less of a sense of commitment and responsibility. I'm pretty sure that the feminist movement was attempting to change women's perspectives on sex and give us the same freedom that casual sex brought the traditional man back in the day, however it has only made casual sex more damaging and possibly given men even more of an advantage in this field.
Beyond casual sex, the feminist movement has added an additional stress on women in the working and homemaking world. Because most of us women have career aspirations now (which is NOT a bad thing at all) we have to learn how to play hardball in the still primarily man's working world in order to get ahead. And yet despite all of our hard work we are still paid significantly less money than a man who works in the same position. So not only are we working harder in the work place, but for those women who want careers and a family their stress is more than doubled. While this stereotype is fading, more so in the face of the recent depression, it is still considered socially unacceptable for a man to yield his bread-winning role to his wife or significant other and take on a more domestic role. And so you have a great deal of women who are doing their best to balance work and the house while the men keep the provider role and do not take on much more domestic responsibility than they did 40 years ago.
In no way do I think that the role of men hasn't changed or that all of them are still the stereotypical macho man, because there are some men that have taken on the domestic role and/or do take responsibility for their actions; But I still do not see the equality that the feminist movement was aiming for.
I do realize that feminism in it's purest sense is the radical idea that a woman can make her own choice, whatever the situation may be. However, it seems that society's reaction to the feminist movement has not been fully beneficial to women and may have only given us a greater yoke to bear. Your thoughts?
(p.s. this was meant to be posted about 2 months ago haha)
