It occurred to me in history class last week that women have had a pretty rough time finding equality with men in basically every society recorded. Lately we have been discussing the lifestyles of the Greeks and the Romans, and from what I can tell, the woman's role back in the Hellenistic age was not much different from the early-American woman's role, maybe even through the mid-1900s. (The most succinct legislation designed to protect women's rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, was proposed 80 years ago and still is not a part of the Constitution.)
In the old days, women had to accept their role in society, and the men did nothing but perpetuate it. Things have changed for the better, thankfully, because women finally have a voice in our society. But while steps are being made on paper in Washington, it doesn't take long to realize that things are still uneven. That social cloud that all of the suffrage was supposed to erase is still around, and instead of fighting it, frankly, I think we men have just gotten more creative.
More and more, the social victimization of women is used as a form of entertainment, a marketing tactic to lift a terrible film plot or a recurring punchline on a TV series. We wave our fingers at stereotypes and say things like, "That's the way it used to be." Women aren't force-fed their motherly responsibilities on a regular basis, and every woman doesn't succumb to peer pressure like in the past. Isn't that unrealistically funny?
Because females live in a free society, when someone speaks up against things like "Girls Gone Wild," guys say stuff like, "Come on, we're just having a good time."
In the fear of sacrificing your fun, gentlemen, something is wrong here.
We support our female classmates now, but we'll keep quiet when they become our underpaid co-workers. According to a Nov. 21, 2003, article in the Detroit Free Press, "Women are paid about 20 percent less than men" for the same jobs.
We say that we believe in female rights and equality but will turn our hats around and cheer as the women we claim to respect take involvement in wet T-shirt contests. David Brooks of the Atlantic calls this type of behavior "Maxim-style retro-sexism" where "the men are making fun of themselves as much as they are degrading women."
As for rape, something men came up with as soon as we decided we were superior: the U.S. Department of Justice reported in 2000 that a woman is raped every 90 seconds. It is not unrealistic to hope that a free and gender-equal society would have a lower record of sexual violence.
Yes, there is such a thing as "a good time," and perhaps chronic partying has become our generation's "burning bras," but with gender bias, the date rape drug and innumerable camera crews out there, I look at the women in my life and all I can think is, "Why would I want this to happen to anyone?"
No respectable man should.
We cannot use this clich+â-¬ college culture as an excuse to roll back what our female ancestors have fought so many years for.
Maybe the way things are now is good enough, but it should not be, and it's about time the men in the room step up and accept their role in helping protect the rights of the true majority of this country.
Write to Gregory at gttwiford@bsu.edu
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