A world free of men: is that the way to go?

The other night, I found myself in the middle of deep thinking—not that it is a strange occurrence at all. Sometimes, time goes slow and the only comfort comes from whatever my mind decides to analyze so that the hours go by faster. In this particular occasion, I started to think about a specific comment I'd overheard throughout the day: the perfect world for women would be one where men didn't exist.

Please let that sink in for a second.

I was dumbfounded at first, but decided not to get into a conversation I didn't even belong to in the first place. Certainly it did lead me to wonder to what extent she actually thought this was not only true but possible. Are there really people out there who think like this? If so, why? These and more questions started popping into my mind, and I figured I would empty my conclusions here. By no means this is meant to offend anyone, but it's a subject I think no one is really focusing on. 

I've always found comfort in this platform—it's a place made for women to speak up, tell stories about their communities, share their amazing projects, inspire others with bravery and hard work, and do so much more for the world than we could ever imagine with the single action of writing.... That's how far words can take you. And I absolutely love that. World Pulse is that gateway to what they once told you was impossible, so this isn't meant to discredit the ideal and moral of the website. With that being said, I've been reading through some articles, and I notice not a single one of them targets how to build a new society that could potentially rely not only on women to be change-makers, but men as well. Now, before you feel offended, yes, I do acknowledge women have had to fight throughout history to get where they are—and, hell, the only reason I went to school and have the privilege to be at a university at the moment is because women before fought for me to have said rights, for me to be able to be considered a citizen and vote. Those are true facts and brilliant moments for us in history.

We taught the world the value of equality, but I feel like said value has deteriorated with the passing of time.

When I heard this girl talking about how much she despised men, I was speechless. Part of me understands the things that lead to distrust and anger from women's part have happened, how society has been built for a long period of time to give men a higher salary, to construct them into a power figure that's so difficult to break. This requires attention and action from our part. We're clearly in a disadvantaged position the majority of time and that's where the importance to focus on women and their rights comes from.... But think about it for a moment: are we willing to fall into the mental state where we cannot discern the truth from deception anymore?

Are we willing to be misled by a weird version of an Utopian world that's not even realistic?

Because, if you ask me, the truth is that there are crappy men walking the streets, but so are a ton of crappy women walking the same streets as well. People should start to realize that bad people are not categorized by their gender—they're categorized by the fact that they do bad things. The other day I saw a woman tweeting about how she believed the patriarchy was the right model for our society; this while a guy responded to her telling her how wrong and selfish that was. And that's just one vivid example that the generalization we're falling into is doing the opposite of what we're aiming to achieve. We shouldn't go out there and glorify the female gender over the male gender—that would be doing the exact same thing they did to us back in the day! 

Before you say it, no. Glorifying women isn't wrong. That's not what I'm trying to say. My point here is: Glorifying women over men is what's wrong. 

To put it into perspective, we've gone so far as to trigger certain people, as I mentioned in an article before, to use the terminology 'feminazi', which refers to a woman who doesn't aspire gender equality but sexism. And I hate that word. I absolutely despise comparing  the act of feminism to Hitler's ideology. That only makes the term feminism get more and more contaminated with radical ideas that belong to a small percentage of the feminist population, but to a certain degree, in a very twisted way, they're showing us how far that percentage has fallen. We're constantly forgetting that women are not the only ones who should be encouraged to speak up. I think this platform would have so much content to give and projects to take advantage of and help if we started looking outside the small castle we constantly build around ourselves. 

I've been cat-called, I've been exposed to disadvantaged positions solely for competing against a guy, I've heard family members praise chauvinistic ideals, and I've been judged for supporting abortion and said topics.... I know why women fight day after day. This isn't a post about me trying to glorify men and take away the credit from women who have had to fight each day of their lives to get a quarter of what the men in their community probably get in a year time. This is about trying to understand that there's more to equality than just fighting for women's rights. I do so every day. I fight for people to look at me as someone whose capable of doing whatever I want if I have enough disposition, but I also fight for people to understand that some men face marginalization as well. There are men out there who fight along with women to construct a new society based on the true elements of equality: team work, understanding, and resilience. 

I write this mostly because I want to remind people that we should talk about these topics more often. We should remember that crafting a fictional world where, yes, women are happy and they feel safe and they don't have to worry about underpayment or whatever clothes they wear out, but men are nowhere to be seen, is the opposite of aiming for gender equality. Some call it redemption—even karma—but I just see it as a petty way to put men through what we had to live for decades. This isn't about vengeance, ladies, it's about learning from society's mistakes and making sure no one else has to go through the horrible things we had to endure in order to get a fresh, equal start.

This is controversial, I know. I don't expect anyone to share my point, or even agree with it, but I feel like no one is talking about the bases of equality and the fact that men, whether people want it or not, exist too. 

You can't have a society ruled by one gender over the other, and turning to radicalism is never the solution. 

Latin America is one of the regions that's constantly fighting against this issue, as well as the United States, so we need to take it into out hands to remind people that if we ever want to build a world based on equal rights, we should understand what the word equal means in the first place. So if you haven't already, I'll leave you with the definition below so you can read it yourself and think about this for just a second of your day: 

E·qual·i·ty

Dictionary result for equality:

noun

noun: equality

the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.

"an organization aiming to promote racial equality"

synonyms: fairness, justness, equitability, impartiality, even-handedness, egalitarianism, equal rights, equal opportunities, nondiscrimination; More

antonyms: inequality.

Remember, we're all fighting to live in the same world. Don't let that thought slip your mind when you're facing a bump along the way. If you feel like someone's not treating you equally, call them out, fight for your rights, raise your voice, but don't bash someone else down in the process. 

We're all humans. Please remember that.