“It is time for men to stand up and reclaim their roles in today’s society.”
This statement has been chanted by many different organizations. It is supposedly a powerful message intended to inspire men to take on responsibility and to make an impact on the world. However, for those overthinkers such as myself, the question comes to mind: “Who told the men to lose claim on their role in society to begin with?”
I know to most this would seem like a really simple question to answer. Many would say that no one has taken away the role of men. However, I have asked this question before, and I have received another recurring answer. Apparently, women have somehow taken on the role of a man, thereby emasculating them and forcing them to lose sight of their role in life.
Now, as a polite person I will not subject anyone to my first response to this answer. I will, however, move on to my second response. How did women even manage to take away the man’s role?
Well, after thinking about this for a while, I started to contemplate where people would have gotten this idea. This meant turning to history.
During biblical times, men were expected to be the dominating figure of the household, for the most part. However, there are many times that records have been found of women working outside of the home. Yes, despite what others may say, women were not just robots whose only job was to cook, clean and have babies. There were female artisans, politicians, nurses, etc.
However, this has not altered the male point of view during this time. Men were still men. They may not have embraced the idea that women were equal to them, but they still had a grip on their masculinity and their ego was not damaged because of the fact that a woman worked.
Moving on to the modern ages, during the times of the women’s rights movement there is still a record number of women working outside of the home. Some situations included during wartime, when the husband was away, when the family was in need of an extra income and other things like that. This was the norm of society.
It was not until the demand of equal pay for equal work arose that this became a problem. Men were returning home to find their wives were not willing to trade in their work gloves for oven mitts. Also, women were making a statement that they wanted to be seen as individuals and not as the weaker sex. The rise of the independent woman had begun.
Now, many years after the passing of many different laws and such, apparently certain men have gotten the idea that just because a woman wants to be independent, this means they have to relinquish their duties as men.
Nevertheless, there are men who do not fall into this category. These manly men have no problem working alongside a female, nor do they mind answering to a female authority. It is these types of men that tend to be overshadowed by the opposing male.
To the men that need an excuse to relinquish their responsibility and maturity, it is my suggestion that a new one should be found. Feminists do not carry around scalpels intending to socially castrate every man in the world. In fact, it is quite the opposite. These men and women (yes there are straight, male feminists) are simply trying to make things equal for all regardless of gender.
I am not criticizing the organizations like the Men of Excellence for trying to get young men to step up and achieve great things. In fact, I applaud them for doing this. I am simply expressing my opinion that the excuse of strong-minded women as a reason for a man’s failure is not plausible. I am not suggesting that a strong woman is one that works outside of the home either. On the contrary, I enjoy cooking and cleaning as well as working. It is not a matter of the greater sex. It is a matter of taking responsibility for our actions and striving to achieve our goals.
Terrisha Buckley is a junior majoring in animal and dairy science. She can be contacted at [email protected].