Tired of Everything Being Male-Centered

By: Aneesha Mahapatra

The world is always evolving and not always for the better. It feels like everything in our society has been built around men and male attention since the beginning. From politics to pop culture, we are always reminded that the cruel male perspective is treated as normal, while women’s needs and voices are ignored.

Male and even female politicians have obviously only made this worse. Laws around abortion and reproductive healthcare are a huge example. Instead of trusting women to make decisions about their own bodies, the people in power (majority men) continue to write policies that restrict women’s choices and take away control over their own lives. These same politicians look the other way when it comes to sexual assault, ignoring survivors while protecting the people who cause the problems. This has never been about “pro life.” It has always been about control. Control that keeps women trapped in a patriarchy, where their lives revolve around men’s rules, desires, and their comfort.

The most dangerous part is how misogyny dives into women’s lives until they start repeating it themselves. After being told for so long that men define worth, some women act on that idea by defending policies that take away their own rights, dismissing other women’s experiences, or vying for male attention as if it were the only thing that matters in life. 

We see it in social scenes too when going out becomes a focus on meeting men, or “needing a boyfriend/husband” are treated as life goals; while personal goals, female friendships, and independence are deprioritized. Even beauty standards teach women to judge themselves based on how attractive they are to men. Misogyny isn’t just from men, it can come from women so deeply that they often repeat it against each other without noticing and pit other women against each other. And the male gaze takes over, while the idea of a woman living for herself gets lost.

I mean, men have a way of making everything worse through constant belittling comments, ongoing disrespect, and reminding women that they are “better” or “stronger” than them. Over time, some women start to see this behavior as normal and even build their lives around it. That’s how misogyny keeps going. People forget that it’s the women who give birth to men, yet they often end up shaping their own lives to fit a system that doesn’t even value them, while men parade around and continue to cause violence. Of course, I must point out that it’s not every man that is evil. There are good men out there, rare maybe, but there are, and hopefully more men continue to fight for women’s rights and treat them with kindness and respect. 

 As a woman, it’s natural to want a boyfriend, to go on dates, to mess around, to want attention, to talk about men (bad or good things), you would not be human without that feeling; but it also shouldn’t be the center of life. Women are strong, powerful, talented, and important. It’s time to stop letting these men that literally do not matter dictate our lives. Women don’t owe their time, energy, or their life to anyone who constantly wants the worst for them, and it’s never worth it to have a male-attention focused night over a girls night. It’s okay not to get married or have children if you don’t want to, we should never let men make that decision. It’s okay not to chase society’s outdated expectations, and not to let male approval define your worth. 

PSA: This does not relate to Conrad Fisher.