“Why are you going outside? Did you finish cooking for me?” When you hear something like this you or we would automatically think that a husband is asking his wife these questions. We don’t stop to think maybe it could be the other way around. Even if she is a working woman she would still have to cook at home. This is called a gender which, in a patriarchal society, is the norm for a woman.
Even though we are in a fast pace generation we still have gender discrimination. These discriminations are so minimal that it goes unnoticed. Today’s time women don’t even know that they are being discriminated and sometimes men are so prone to act in an specific way that they don’t realize that they are discriminating.
Whenever you hear a man carrying a phone conversation his volume is a bit high pitched and much louder than woman. This portray men as powerful or at least they thing this is what they are illustrating about their being. The status of a man, no matter what their class is would always be above a woman.
One day I was having a political conversation with one of my male colleague at work. After a long debate he laughed and said no wonder there are no female president in America and neither would there be any. I, angrily, asked why not. He said because women go through menstruation time and during that time they go through horrible mood swings. So he stated that during that one week, every month, a female president might destroy the whole world. A reminder to everyone is that a president have a personal advisor whom the president takes majority of his suggestions from. With this benefit every male president have made mistakes in the past then why blame only a female for her actions and accuse her of having a chemical imbalance? What should we think about those president who took some historically horrifying decisions during their period?
A basic thought of every man is that a woman think with emotions. We are emotional which is why our reactivity is so much more relatable. For a man to think and act would be done based on sentiment. I think sentiment sometimes takes the role of an ego. Ego is not necessarily negative until its performed and presented in that manner.
Any society has a set standard rule/norm for how both gender should perform and stay within their sex because it creates less confusion. I wish we were able to do anything but then I also know that anything means no boundaries. Having no limitation could become a negative thing. Only because we don’t know how to balance everything in our live. As long as there is enough respect among the two sexes I think we could have a harmonious society.
But could this be possible? In reality there is no such thing as a harmonious society because no matter what, men are bound to poke women when they rise higher than them. We could always try to make it closer to better but there is no true solution to this matter. The reason is simply because of the nature and nurture that everyone is born and raised with. There is always someone in the family who is old fashion and traditional. For them a patriarchal society is what they are used to and that’s what they will fight for. This is a on going war/battle between men and women. This revolution will never end because to bring justice to every part of life is so vast and it will take multiple lifetime to alter a set standard rule for the up coming generation.
As long as there is respect among the both sexes then we are to say that we are closer to becoming equal.

"Feminism Is for everybody"

Despite the general muttering of the class how the book is so very repetitive, I personally found it rather revolutionary. It is kind of like Marx’s The Communist Manifesto. Only that instead of “Workers of the world, Unite!” it is more like “Women of all races, classes, religions and sexuality unite into a one strong sisterhood!”
When I was reading this Hooks’ sentence:
We all knew firsthand that we had been socialized as females by patriarchal thinking to see ourselves as inferior to men, to see ourselves as always and only in competition with one another for patriarchal approval, to look upon each other with jealousy, fear, and hatred.
I became aware that this type of stingy sentiments and behaviors are the lot of the dominated. I was reminded how my grandmother and mother pitied the comportment of their compatriots, who were busy harming and jealousing their neighbors’ success. They would only compete against each other, instead of the foreigners that were in reality exploiting them. Only now I understand that these people were socialized in such way, so that their collective spirit was completely destroyed. This is a sad thing to become aware of, but there are multiple levels of insecurities and deep ingrained misguided beliefs that occurred through wrongful socialization, and which keep on getting more pilled up with each additional matrix of domination. We truly need to change the whole system our society is based on. Maybe the thing to start the change with is something we give immense importance to, money and capitalism. Without wanting to sound socialist or anything, I feel that in this society we don’t have time to be kind or caring, because we are busy making money to survive or just to collect as much as wee can. We just don’t have time to stop and look around; we are constantly in a race against one-an-other.
This book is good not only for the feminist cause, but also to eliminate colonialist spirit of exploitation, racism and social injustice, and it calls people to lead lives of more mutual care and understanding. I really liked it. Michelle