WORLD OF SEXISM AND DOUBLE STANDARDS

THE 1960s witnessed the birth of feminism. The Oxford Dictionary defines feminism as a movement or theory that supports the rights of women.

Originally, feminism was meant to eradicate sexism and create a new world founded on equality of men and women. Personally, I strongly feel that feminism has failed dismally; instead it employs double standards to feed sexism. In a nutshell, men and women are victims of sexism and double standards, which is what I want to bring to your attention today dear reader.

Over the years we have seen the rise of gender-based violence. By the way, gender- based violence is not the abuse of women by men as the media has been portraying it to be. It is the abuse of males and females by males and females. Sexism and double standards have been knitted into the DNA of our society, normalised and wormed into our culture that nobody now dares question them. Double standards and sexism create animosity between men and women; they hinder us from achieving a peaceful society.
Double standard is defined as a rule or principle which is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups, while sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex.

Reason

The reason why I say feminism breathes life into sexism through double standards is that feminism is conditional. If men and women swapped positions, women went six feet to dig minerals; the whole world would riot because women are doing what is beyond their league. Why? Because they are women, they are not supposed to be doing all that apparently.
Don’t you smell sexism and double standards here? To me feminism only knows women’s rights when it favours them. When it comes to hard labour, it remembers that there are men and women, double standards and sexism!

Sexism has two faces, an ugly face and a made- up face. Women are victims of the ugly face while men are victims of the made-up face. Lost? Ok let me find you. Sexism is sugar-coated in men, it comes sprinkled with pride and egos, it is boastful. An example is that a fearful man is called ‘umfati’; as if one’s manhood’s function is to generate guts. This is sexism because it basically says, just because you are a man, you are supposed to behave this way, you are capable of this, you are not capable of that. Fearful men are always shamed, demeaned and called all sorts of names. Many men become violent because they are trying to prove that they are not women.

Victims

Women are victims of the ugly face of sexism. The ugly face is straight up brutal. We have heard of stories where one girl engages in a sexual act with two guys, who is called all sorts of names, the girl right! While the guys are applauded and called ‘tikhokho’. The difference between men and women is that men are given a chance to prove themselves.

The point I am driving home is that it takes a sharp eye to see that our every day statements are sexist but we never take notice of that because they were normalised. Our tongues got used to ushering them that they became our every day language. We breathe life into sexism daily.

We subconsciously programme our sons to look at themselves differently from their sisters, we teach them to toughen up. If they are naturally soft, we say things like; “You were supposed to be a girl.” They then grow up knowing that to be a man is to be tough, never ever show affection as it is a sign of weakness.

Whenever we create movements, may we create movements that have the best interest of both men and women, founded on the principles of equity and humanity.

We need movements that understand that no gender is more important than the other, movements which understand that men and women are equally important. Movements which understand that men are seeds and women are the soil. What is the soil without seeds, what are seeds without the soil?

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