Is Feminism A Good Thing?

Well we all know there are two sides to every story, I don’t particularly believe this is true but what the hell do I know. With the question regarding feminism and whether it’s a good thing, well….I’m not so sure it is.

There are many branches to the feminist theory but I won’t bore you with all of them simply because I don’t know them myself but let’s just say that they strive to achieve some sort of equality between men and women in the work place and possibly life in general. Yea, that sounds about right. If a man and a woman are doing the same role they should be rewarded equally don’t you think?

As for life in general, well, how does one ‘equally’ bear and raise a child? When I go to the supermarket I see a lot of women with push chairs and toddlers shopping. I see some men but not half as many men as women. Now personally, I believe that woman and child have that ‘special’ maternal bond, this may be because the child has lived inside his/her mother for 9 months. He/she has become accustomed to the mothers movements and habits, the sound of her voice way before it has entered the real world. For men, you can only start this bond after the child has been born or maybe you can speak to the child while it’s in the womb to give yourself a head start. Women play a bigger part in raising their child. It’s just natural I would assume. They also play a large role in the running of the house domestically. When I was younger I was the one who done the majority of the house work and cooking (after my mother of course). I had an older brother who helped sometimes but the responsibility was mainly on me. I use to ask why I was the one who had to do the housework to which my mum would reply ‘because you’re a girl’ or ‘it’s training for the future’. What?...Training?! As far as I was concerned I went to school just like my brother, I had a part time job like him AND I still had to do housework? Gimme a break will ya, I still got homework to do! It didn’t seem fair to me at all. Later on I realised that even though women and men work to keep the house in order financially, women were responsible for the house domestically and this included looking after the children. So were the ways of my family and many others I presume.

Furthermore if a woman is playing a large part in raising her child and looking after the house, this means that work takes second place. Employees are aware of this and are sometimes quite reluctant to employ young women or (especially) women with kids whereas men, much more than women, are less likely to have this problem and are therefore unlikely to be penalised for this. From a business point of view, men are in this sense much more reliable candidates than women. I am more than aware that some men also face this burden, especially if for some particular reason; the mother is not around to look after her child. But let’s face it, these cases are considerably less for men than they are for women. It makes me consider whether liberal feminism is worth the time and effort. Can there ever really be equality in the work place/political environment when the duties the majority of men and women have, differ so much? It seems to me that women generally make the bigger sacrifices when it comes to family and because of this, are some how excluded or discriminated against.

So if I was to break all this down I would say; women and men work equally (women with generally less pay than men don’t forget) but women have the added duty of looking after the home while men have the added duty of…???

Just saying it how I see it.