It’s the era of women empowerment and feminism is at its peak. Even third world countries like Pakistan are passing bills prohibiting domestic violence against women. Could the resurfacing of the #DontMancriminate campaign be because of bruised male egos? Or was the battle of the sexes coming to an unjust verdict?
In late June 2015, Maggcom (The Indian online lifestyle magazine) started an online campaign called #DontMancriminate, which aimed to promote equality for men and women alike — with the emphasis on men. As nothing on the internet ever dies, this campaign has wormed its way out once again.
The call for gender equality is becoming more and more sexist over the years, in the most unique ways. The arguments feminists make against men and the patriarchal society we live in are rebutted by the “manists” and their concerns. The foundation of feminism and manism is not to promote gender equality but to create a foundation for each gender to say they have been wronged. So is gender equality possible? Has gender discrimination decreased, or is it all just a façade?
Women are perceived to be timid, vulnerable and fragile due to historical oppression they faced. Today, crimes against women are rising and the only thing people do about it is argue whether it’s because the girl wore provocative clothes or whether the boy just desperate? The argument becomes a manist vs feminist cry fest. The feminists claiming that all men look at women with devious eyes and Manists’ claiming that the male gender is stereotyped to be criminals or bad.
Today, there is a growing trend of objectifying women in leading multinational advertisements. It is quite obvious and not at all subtle as it once used to be. Objectivity is the main concern of all feminists; in fact it is the main point that wins arguments against manists. Women are strategically placed in adverts to either come off as seductive or be a tad bit revealing. This has become very common not only for adverts referring to fashion or makeup but for beverage, snack and technology adverts to name a few. Manists counter argue that men face objectivity too and whilst that may be considered true, it is not nearly as common as that with women.
This may seems like a small point but it says a lot about people and society. These advertisements are tailor made to appeal to the target market and since we are the target market it seems we will only buy a product if a female is portrayed in a particular way; which in turn really exposes the reality of our narrow-mindedness. The points raised by the ‘don’t mancriminate’ campaign are great. It is perfectly justified to demand that females wait in line, or carry their own heavy weight etc if gender equality is what we’re aiming for. But with laws also passing to oppress wives and other sexist perspectives society owns it is very clear that in this fight for gender equality, personal biasness and at times spite seem to shadow the word equality. We may be going far in our fight against gender discrimination, but folks we haven’t moved an inch in our fight for gender equality. So if we aren’t achieving or frankly even aiming to achieve gender equality then what are we really trying to achieve?