The Gender Campaign Anatomized

When I wrote the article “The man of the House” I wanted to put the goal of the gender campaign and the existing strategies on the spotlight. I have noticed that most of us if not all are feminists. There are several issues I would thus like to raise.

The above has been a topic of debate for a long time in the gender campaign. The basic question is, should the male species be involved in the gender campaign? From your comments of the earlier article, I can see that some say yea, some say nay. There are two groups of feminists, those that fight for equality, and those that fight for supremacy. Thus the debate continues.

For life to be balanced some sociologists say there has to be two extremes. There has to be the oppressor and the oppressed. There can never be an equal society. Such structures have exited since the beginning of time. And many theorists have developed ways and means where equality in society, (in terms of the rich and the poor) can be achieved but non-has worked so far.

The two basic groups that have always existed is that of the man and the woman, and the woman has always been the inferior class, the undermined the oppressed.

Thus if we apply the above argument to the gender campaign, some may say that women should not strive for equality, rather they should fight for supremacy, for there is no society where equality has existed.

On the other hand, while this argument makes sense, is it ethical? Is it sustainable?

Take an example of white supremacy, versus black supremacy. Africans were fighting for their independence from the colonial masters, and African Americans, Indians, and all undermined races were fighting for their rights. What would happen if they fought for supremacy over the oppressor race? Wouldn’t we be fighting the same war now.

By the oppressor becoming the oppressed, does that make it ethical; is that the only way to get justice? And if the oppressor becomes the oppressed, wont the “new” oppressed also want to defend himself/herself, and wont that mean that the war will go round in circles, and last for generations.

If we apply this concept to the gender campaign then as women we need to ask ourselves, do we want equality or supremacy? Are we after poetic justice?

Then there is the issue of masculinity in female leadership: another debate that has emerged. Do we as women need to fight as men? Do we need to act as the male species in order to win this fight? Are we then not dragging masculinity in the gender campaign, if we do so? Why do we feel that we have to act as men, and fight like men? Why not fight like women? What will distinguish as from the male species if we do so, wont it just be our biological details?

Are there women who facilitate the existence of the patriarchal society? Women have been known to stand in the way of the progress of their fellow women. While the same applies to men, they can afford to do this, because they have been dominating society, but the same cannot be said of women. When women fight like men the above happens, they stand in the way of each other.

The abundance versus scarcity mentality: we settle for the small handouts given to us by the patriarchal society, for example a percentage of the seats in parliament. Then we fight each other for these seats. Yet there is so much more we can achieve if we have the correct strategies. Should we involve the man, the boy-child, or should it be a “women-only thing”?

This is not to say, that rapist, should be understood, I think they should be circumcised and imprisoned for life. This is not to say that any injustice inflicted on women should be understood, in the name of “the perpetrators have been conditioned by the existing patriarchal society.”

The aim is to change the patriarchal society, but we want to change it to what? Egalitarian? Or Matriarchal?