The Misplaced Motivation Of The Bra Burners

Out of the many worn, misused and misinterpreted words in present-day English language, “feminism” is high up on my list. It is not hard to come across bra-burning misandrists, raving and ranting against the opposite sex, screaming for equality – all in the name of the convenient excuse they call feminism. Onlookers applaud their heroism, their cause and their actions.

No one, even for a minute, stops to wonder what the point of this whole exercise is, and how misplaced it is. “Equality,” they shriek hoarsely, “we are as good as men, in every way.”

I am a woman, and one with enough respect to deserving members of both sexes. But I don’t want equality. No, thank you. I’d rather not fight a battle that is going to give me that irrelevant result.

I want freedom.

Freedom from the standards set by a male-dominated world. Freedom from the standards accepted by the misguided feminists. Freedom from the expectation that if I want to advance my station in life, I must be able to do everything that a man can.

I can’t. Let’s face it. A man my age, and of my weight, can lift two of my suitcases with relative ease, while I would clumsily fall over them, on them, in them – to no avail. While I consider myself to be the rare exception, I have noticed that men do tend to have better driving skills than women do. Stereotypical judgments? Perhaps. But then, every stereotype is rooted in some fact.

The truth is, I don’t want to do everything a man can do. I want to be my own being, with my own abilities, strengths and weaknesses. I don’t want anyone telling me that they are no good and that I need to be at par with masculine benchmarks to be considered a success.

I have enough to be proud about: my emotional intelligence, my ability to give birth – a miracle no man can ever claim ownership to, my natural protective instincts toward all I love and care for, my ability to manage whole families, whole businesses and even more so, families and businesses. And as anyone will ever tell you, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I think it is alright to ask a fellow male passenger for help if I am unable to lift my suitcase onto the train. It is not a threat to my independence, or my pride in my femininity. It is a simple fact whose denial serves absolutely no purpose, except to further the cause of the many angry pseudo-feminists of the world.

To them, I offer one piece of advice: think about what you are fighting for. Be less concerned with the symptoms of chauvinism, and more concerned with the disease itself. For heaven’s sake, stop being so defensive. Everything is not an attack against the fairer sex.

Most importantly, I would like to tell them this: blind criticism of men will get us nowhere — you can’t fight one form of sexism with another. And the last time I checked, there was nothing hypocritical about feminism.

Image: Rich Anderson