Austin Croucher
For those of you who have watched Barbie, you may have heard the word: Patriarchy. Modern capitalist society is practically based on exploitation. Obviously, people who aren’t cisgender men suffer in this world.
But men also suffer! Society excludes those who don’t fit in the box. Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Transphobia, Antisemitism(Discrimination of jews), and Islamophobia are all commonplace. They aren’t as bad as the past, like how homosexuality used to be illegal, but now we have institutionalized discrimination.
Even though many laws are in place to prevent this, such as the 1st and 19th amendments in US law, or things like Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, a freedom of expression law, and The Constitution of South Africa, for gender equality.
Though they mean that nobody can blatantly harass people for their gender, race, or religion, that doesn’t mean people can’t find workarounds.
For example, the pay gap between the gender binary. Women get paid less, on average, than men for the same job. Toss in gender nonconforming people and now you have nonbinary erasure. (Pew Research Center: The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap, by Rakesh Kochhar)
Now, back to how men suffer as well. It is a stereotype that men can’t cry in public. Men must be strong. Some people say men can’t experience trauma.
“‘Males may be particularly unlikely to report and come forward because victims are thought to be weak, vulnerable, unable to protect themselves and in need of help or assistance,’ Stroshine said. ‘These attributes conflict with many males’ definitions of what it means to be a ‘strong’ man in contemporary society.’” (Marquette Wire: Underreporting among males likely due to gender-based stigma, by Mathew Martinez)
An example. Some people don’t believe men have hormones, they have testosterone(Which causes more masculine features). Not only is testosterone a hormone, but everyone produces both testosterone and oestrogen(estrogen for American English), which causes feminine features. The difference between the sexes is that men generally produce more testosterone, and women produce more oestrogen.
In transgenderism, hormone supplements are given, and steroids, a drug for tissue and protein development, while it doesn’t have testosterone, Bodybuilder supplements use testosterone to help muscle development, much like how oestrogen helps breast tissue development.
I found the film Ferdinand, a film about a bull who is expected to do bullfights in Spain, an allegory(The meaning is used as something else, closely tied to symbolism) for the patriarchy.
The main character, Ferdinand, as I said earlier, is a bull. His father was a bullfighting bull, and he is surrounded by other calves who want to fight legendary bullfighters. However, Ferdinand prefers to simply tend to flowers and takes solace in the peacefulness.
He eventually escapes and is adopted by a family of gardeners, where he finally finds happiness. Obviously, there’s a plot and all that, but the main story is that Ferdinand is being forced to do something he doesn’t want to, due to his birth.
Nobody should be subjected to that, obviously. People should be people. In fact, unless being reclaimed, the words “Effeminate” and “Shemale” are actually considered harmful or derogatory. (This Book Is Gay, Juno Dawson)
