Effects of Modern Feminism and Masculinity on Heterosexual Relationships

I. Introduction: Living in a world that has gotten more and more sophisticated as time goes by, people seem to have overlooked their basic natures as organisms and how this greatly influences the choices that we make in our lives. As organisms, our main purpose in life is to reproduce and ensure that our species survive. When we put this in the context of our modern social structure, it seems as if the two existing sexes don’t want this to happen. Today we see females pushing for “equal rights”, complaining that the traditional roles of society for them are unfair and that they are the oppressed sex, wanting to be independent of men, pursuing careers and ambitioning to rise in power. We see males who have rationalized that sensitivity is a trait that will help them procure relationships, males who have been conditioned to believe that anything remotely masculine is to be ridiculed and subdued. Thus, we have a flawed modern gender-dynamic. Often do we hear that men, women and relationships are such mysteries that we can never grasp the way they work and think; we then forget that nothing in this world is fundamentally mysterious. In reality, it’s only us humans and our inability to rationally explain the way things works. When we draw attention to how something functions beyond our reasoning, it’s the same as drawing attention to how little our understanding is. But men, women, relationships they are not mysteries. We have just gotten caught up with the fabrications and demands of the present society that we have forgotten how simple these things are. The original need of feminism, which happened before the middle of the 20th century, was because there were many legal and social restrictions on what women could do. Women were not legally allowed to own property, to vote, etc. and feminists of that time worked hard to remove these biases against women. This is a righteous push for equality. The problem with modern feminism is that it assumes the need for a 50/50 type of equality of men and women. ____ stated that men and women are fundamentally different and want different things; this makes it difficult to compare their welfare. This basically means that we cannot assume that if we achieve a 50/50 equality that everything then is fair and right. Furthermore, according to Richards (2003), feminists are prepared to throw all constraints of morality to the winds; that right or wrong, fair or unfair; they will pursue anything which is to the benefit of women. In support of this Venker (2011) said that once feminism came along, women abandoned their pedestal in droves and decided they wanted to share man’s pedestal with him. They claimed they wanted both sexes on the same pedestal to represent equality and prove men and women are the same. Instead, they found themselves in conflict. Since there isn’t enough room on a pedestal for both of them, feminists pushed men off to make room for themselves. That’s not equality, that’s matriarchy. The idea of living in a world that demands double standards from its inhabitants is not far off. ____ stated that the very men who encourage women to be most daring and sexless complain most bitterly of the sexlessness of women. The same holds true with women. The women who adore men so tremendously for their social smartness and sexlessness as males, hate them most bitterly for not being “men”. In our opinion, the popularized notion that sex roles are interchangeable is a fantasy that will continue to harass and stain the beautiful way of life that has ensured the survival of humans. Men and women shouldn’t be seen as competitors or one being more powerful and dominating over the other, rather we should see them as counterparts each providing their own contributions. One cannot exist and will not exist without the other.

II. Body:
Part1
The generation today has changed. Compared to what our mothers had as careers, women seek for careers that will provide them economic stability. (Jacobs, 2004) As mentioned earlier by Baumgardner (2010), Feminism arrived in a different way in the lives of the women of this generation; they never knew a time before where girls can do anything boys can. In line with this, Jacobs (2004) says that nowadays, a woman’s fiscal self-sufficiency has transformed the gender dynamics affecting marriage.
In cases where the wife brings in more money rather than her husband, this causes discrepancy in the ideal roles in a relationship. This damages the relationship in a sense that there is a turnaround of fixed economic power. The couple will often deal with the connotation of disrespect for the man. Due to the changing times, men nowadays expect their wives to contribute to economic responsibilities of the family and are aggravated when women are not able to do so.
Based on a study, people who focus on power and money are prone to suffering depression rather than those who prioritize humanitarian values. One of the most profound and unrecognized influences on our ability to be happily married is the stress of living in the material world. A great deal of couples concern themselves on earning and shelling out rather than marriage, meaning, to bring an end to splurging meant altering their position and worth. Couples are certain that going after worldly goods is for the benefit of their family, but in reality it is for the social position and benefits. (Jacobs, 2004)
Part2
Society has a way of creating and molding our identities yet at the same time, unconsciously, we as well leave an imprint on society’s structure. The very basic question that people ask when it comes to gender roles in society is “what should males and females do?” Simple? Not quite, the answers to this question have become perplex to the point that even endorsers of modern feminism and masculinity are often confused and have conflicts with their own preferences and ideals. We have entered an era of unprecedented “advancement” in humanity and now we seem to have misplaced and suppressed our true natures of being just another organism of this world. Entering relationships nowadays has become a more complicated process than what we would prefer it to be. People have forgotten that relationships are based on the need for our race to propagate themselves through continuous reproduction and nourishment. As the roots of feminism penetrate deeper and deeper into society, the two genders are slowly becoming normalized. Men are afraid to be men because masculinity has been effectively demonized and women are afraid to be women because “femininity” is perceived as an unequal form of masculinity rather than a complement to it.
Part3
According to Lawrence (2003), as human beings, life is filled with excitement and a wide range of emotions. Our bodies feel hunger, thirst, anger, sadness, love, tenderness, hate and grief. These are only a number of emotions that belong to our bodies, and at the same time acknowledged by the mind. However, these are two different matters, mental feelings and real feelings. What society does not know is that, the education we are given has trained us to feel a certain range of emotions. We are told what to feel, what not to feel and how to feel the feelings we allow ourselves to feel. Everything else does not exist. This feeling only what you allow yourselves to feel at last kills all capacity for feeling, and in the higher emotional range you feel nothing at all. Higher emotions are associated with love in all its manifestations, from genuine desire to tender love, love for others, love for God and others. All of these are more or less dead due to too much sentimental imitation for such emotions. We belong to the age where everything is exaggerated. The game we all play involve sentimentality and counterfeit feeling. People thrive on it, live with it and could swallow it up. However, one could expect to fool oneself for quite some time regarding one’s emotions, but never forever. When reality strikes back, it hits us relentlessly over and over again.

III. Conclusion: When all hope seems to be lost in terms of gender equality, Femininity comes into the picture. Femininity has a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally linked with girls and women. Traits that fall under femininity that are considered feminine include gentleness, empathy, and sensitivity though traits associated with femininity often vary depending on location and context, and include a variety of social and cultural factors. This is the female counterpart of masculinity. As Fromm (2000) says, “The masculine character can be defined as having the qualities of guidance, activity, discipline, and adventurousness; the feminine character by the qualities of productive receptiveness, protection, realism, endurance, and motherliness. Despite femininity being the counterpart of masculinity, men and women are certainly different from one another. Both genders were designed and fashioned in their own way. This simply means that women cannot be content by believing to be like men. This applies to men as well, they will never be content by believing to be like women. How do we truly be happy and live in harmony? By simply eradicating political correctness completely. Society has to teach boys and girls that it is perfectly normal to be different. That’s the way it is. Society has to stop teaching girls that they are inferior to boys, which feminists have been brainwashing us to think.
Jacobs (2004) says, everyone wants to be in love and human beings looking for love suffer from the common, regrettable characteristic of becoming deeply emotionally attached a new lover before they know whether it is really wise for them to form such attachment. Attachment is created and preserved commonly in large scale evidence that is foolish and unfavorable. Society is in denial of the hardships of marriage wherein it favors idealism over reality. Fromm (2000) finds a way to deal with this by saying one must know himself and his partner impartially in order to see past the illusions and the ideal image.
Perhaps the most crucial obstacle of marriage is that while one is devising a plan and learning how to live with the differences between himself and his spouse, one must simultaneously maintain a respectful and loving relationship. Fromm (2000) expounds on respect by saying, it is taking the person completely and wholeheartedly, not to be mistaken for horror and admiration. We expect to develop with this person a lifelong relationship that will nourish both of us as we build a family. Our relationship and our children will simultaneously thrive and grow and our family will find fulfilment. It is simple really, one should live as one feels like, not as you think you should. Feelings are hardly ever wrong. Feminism cannot change that. Kanazawa (2008) says You are seldom wrong if you follow your feelings; you are seldom right if you follow feminism or any other political ideology.