Background
For decades and even centuries we have seen women struggle for rights that they deserved but weren’t granted, for safety, recognition, dignity, equality and empowerment in various fields etc.
Throughout these struggles, a united mass movement of majority women and men supporting ‘gender equality’ arose, what we called ‘feminism’.
However, giving ‘feminism’ a standardized definition would create numerous disagreements as people’s ideas and notions about the word feminism may vary greatly.
Ponder.
Nature of Modern Feminism
Most of the feminist movements professionally carried out by women in the past decades are of a fairly good cause, however, ‘feminism’ has taken a different turn in the last couple years now absorbing qualities which are repulsive to many who even though might support gender equality/justice will deny to call themselves a feminist simply because the general idea now has broken down to a certain extent and varies greatly among different people.
The best description that can be given to modern [apparent] feminism being carried out in majority (but not completely) can be ‘women dominance’ (feminazi; matriarchy), and not ‘gender equality’. A good example for such notions can be the assumption that every male has to get up to give their seat to women in a metro/bus even if she is in perfect health (the assumption is correct if pregnant, old age or any other relative cause).
Edit:: The definition of feminism is and still remains to this day as a movement whose aim is to achieve equality of the sexes. Some black sheep (Feminazis) have gone out of their way and want to establish a matriarchal societal structure, and they do not represent feminism.
Mutual Empowerment among the same gender
Anyways, you probably already know most of how bad and misguided things in this field have become, how much controversy and debate it has lead to everywhere between people of various ages, so skipping more details on this let’s get to the point of the title- “mutual empowerment…”.
Leaving aside the blame game on judging the other gender, it is essential to start involving ourselves in empowerment of each other in various fields and not just crying about it.
This can be done in many ways, and no this does not mean supporting each other even if they’re wrong and calling it ’empowerment’ and blaming the society for being ‘judgmental’.
However, this requires an attempt to become patient, compassionate and understanding people and the society so you don’t end up blaming the entirety of the opposite gender every time just one of them does something wrong. (“All men/women are…”), stuff like this provokes backlashes by the opposite gender on why they don’t like supporting gender-related movements etc.
Instead of doing the “all men/women are…” ritual every time one person does something wrong or judges you, why not establish the strength to ignore their sexist/racist comment and bring out numerous reasons why they’re wrong and empower each other and support each other in a good way to move ahead in life and be more productive, strong, independent and lead?
“Women supporting each other, instead of competing against each other, brings a unity and strength like no other” Julie Spira
Cross-Gender/Humanitarian Mutual Empowerment
That was a small outline on how empowerment in a different perspective and understanding can help, now coming to a different mode of mutual empowerment- one where gender is irrelevant.
This can come in handy to reduce sexual crimes, violence and sexist judgement. However, pulling this together would take a great deal of effort and the co-operation of every single human being that has stepped foot on the soil of Earth and is breathing.
Basically, both genders must start seeing each other as the same species with an equal value, obviously they are not ‘identical’ but the value remains the same.
How? Take the following mark sheet of two students in consideration in a test, they have scored differently in every question (i.e. student A may have got a question wrong which student B may have got correct etc.). However, the end total is the same value.
For sexual harassment and abuse to stop, people need to be trained to be disciplined (self control, focus, understanding), control their desires and look at others in a different way, realize their human value, recognize that they have feelings like you do (may be even more intense and sensitive; you never know).
The advantage of inculcating this in life is that it brings numerous other benefits as well, not just inhibiting harassment and abuse but even improving ones social life and its various aspects as a whole. Who knows, maybe that one day at school or work after the weekend might not seem that bad anymore!
Due to the length of this post I will not be expressing more examples, think for yourself, what are your suggestions for mutual empowerment to raise our safety, trust and collaboration standards cross-gender? Leave your answers down in the comments below!