Feminism. By men.

Yesterday, while I was surfing the net, I came accross a couple of articles about Feminism. I'm not sure if I am a feminist, but I do know that females have a slight disadvantage in many, not to say all, aspects of life: careers, money, social standards, sex, etc.

These articles were written by men, which I found very interesting. Lots of guys think that "feminists" just hate men or are just looking for ways to justify being heartless sluts. Extreme, right? Yes, I agree. But you'll be surprised of how many men are convinced of that.

Anyways, the articles. The first one is a guy making strong points about how some feminist women just assume that EVERYTHING is an attack against them. Although he makes some good points about males being clueless, it ends up in the same rant that I hear from "modern" men saying that "chauvinistic jokes are just jokes" and "you wanted equality? Then deal with it!". Basically, he tries to understand women, but claims to despair at his lack of success.

Then later that day I found another article. Again, about feminism, and written by a guy. But this time, started with the nice suggestion to his "brothers" to never try to understand women, simply because, they are NOT a woman. I think that's where the problem really is. It's easy to talk about tackling racism when you are white and ending poverty when you are well-off. And it's very comfortable to give advice to people that simply do not enjoy your same priviledges. Yes, guys, you ARE priviledged. Call it nature, society, government, religion etc etc etc, but History has always put you before women.

So please, spare the lecture that "you know how we feel" or that "you try to understand us". No. And I agree there. We're different. But not because of that we should be treated differently.

I'll suggest you read both articles and see what I am talking about.

Selfish

I often wonder if when I get hurt, it's because of me or not. This week had a lot of those "wondering" moments. I wasn't hurt, but was extremely annoyed at how many people can be so self-involved and inconsiderate. Makes me wonder if selfish people are just generally more successful in life. Sadly, that seems to be the case.

You understand when people cannot get out of their ways to help you in many circumstances, but to refuse assistance just because they don't feel like it AND making sure you know that, it's shameful in the least.

I think about the moments where I sacrifice a bit of my time or resources to help another person and even though I don’t get a reward it kind of makes me feel like I’m a better person because of it. I see, however, people that are apparently happier, richer and more popular and liked do not do this. They get away with being selfish because, well, you have to take care of No. 1 first, right?

There are two things I can do: Either stop getting involved with selfish bastards or at least making sure that I do not count on them for anything ever again, or I become a selfish bastard myself. I don’t think I can possibly live with the latter. I’m too nice. Blame it on my parents or on my Zodiac sign, but that is my reality and have to live with it.

I suppose the only thing I can do is learn to live with it, and make sure that I don’t become one of them, no matter how tempting it looks. And if I ever have the need to be “selfish” and to refuse assistance, I know who to practice with ;)