We’re failing women
A lot of men love to boast about and defend their masculinity and argue that their defining role is to be protectors of women. What they’re doing however is defending themselves against a thought. The thought of being like less of a man in the eyes of other men. Being weak. Incapable. Rejected. What you fear you try to control. And of course, women gaining more power is a terrifying idea in the minds of those insecure, loud and boastful men. So, the obvious consequence is to try and control women. Control their thoughts, their choices and decisions, control their behavior, control their bodies. From the murder of Naira Ashraf in Egypt by her fellow university student for refusing to marry him, to 21 year old Iman Rashid who was shot and killed on a university campus in Jordan, to the supreme court’s recent overturning of abortion rights in the United-States, we’re failing women all around the world. We’re still trying to control women. We’re still trying to keep women in a cage where we can limit their power, out of fear of what women in power can do and be. The so-called protector mentality many men abide by is better called a controller mentality. Controlling others is fear. Controlling yourself is wisdom. Your attempt at controlling women is a reflection of your feeling beneath them. You’re threatened by what seems inherently superior and more powerful than you. What a fucking irony. It’s sad too, because it all comes from how boys were raised in the pressure and fear of not being weak. You always gotta be tough, so you can’t let people, especially women, emasculate you, right? But in your struggle against the thought of weakness, you’re haunted by it in your every waking hour. It’s men’s sense of weakness that drives them to try and crush women’s rights, to suppress any opportunity for women’s empowerment. Strong men aren’t afraid of strong women, they’re grateful for them, they’re turned on by them, they love them, they honor them. They make them smile. Because strength recognizes strength. So when a woman’s power and dignity is not honored, a strong man will stand up for it, because strength defends strength. Dignity defends dignity. So when you talk about protecting a woman, show me that you’re protecting her dignity, that you’re protecting her rights, not controlling her decisions. When women’s rights are being robbed, strong men are not silent. I will not tolerate that the women in my life who I love and honor be robbed of their dignity. When I hear the argument that abortion is murder, that a woman cannot be the master of her destiny, I hear the same propaganda that has been spreading for millenia. Founded on no evidence, only personal belief, and driven by the need to control women. When I hear you say that abortion is murder, and see you aggressively campaigning against it, it makes me wish you spent the same level of energy campaigning against female genital mutilation, since 200 million women and girls have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). It makes me wish you gave as much shit about child labor in different parts of the world. It makes me wonder why you’re not as strong of an advocate against child sex trafficking, and against rape and murder of women around the world, or even just in your neighborhood, since 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. And when I hear again and again that abortion is murder, it makes me wonder why you stay quiet on the matter of gun laws, on the amount of Black people that have been killed by cops, or on the genocide of Native Americans throughout American and Canadian history, on the missing and murder Indigenous women of Canada, and on Canada’s Indigenous residential schools. Yet, I see that you insist on focusing all your energy on abortion laws. You insist on deciding what a woman is to do with her body, and with her destiny. You see, it’s never been about murder. It’s always been about your need to control. Whether the reasons are religious, political, or supposedly human rights based, this insistence on controlling women is why we’re failing women, and why a man who honors a woman’s dignity cannot be silent about this.
Sources:
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/16-shocking-facts-about-violence-against-women-and-girls
https://www.endfgm.eu/female-genital-mutilation/what-is-fgm/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/23/female-student-shot-to-death-in-jordan-assailant-at-large
