Women's Rights are Human Rights

    To most men, the idea that women’s issues affect them seems absurd. Why, boys ask, should I care about women and their rights? To many, the plight of women is too remote for them to care; women’s issues are seen as applying to women only, and thus men refuse to care about them.
    However, even when one overlooks important issues like justice and liberty that make paying attention to women’s issues imperative for men, it is still important for men to care about the issues women face because of economic and social reasons.

First, this is supported by economics. Since women make up roughly half of the population, discouraging women from taking up jobs halves the workforce, thereby hurting the economy. Not only that, but it lowers the chances of a brilliant female inventor producing a gizmo that solves one of the many problems of our world.

    In a 2009 paper entitled "Women's Liberation: What's in It for Men?,” UCLA researchers Matthias Doepkey and Michele Tertlit demonstrate that from a purely economic perspective, granting women greater freedom is beneficial for the economic welfare of men.
    “Women’s rights are closely related to economic development,” Doepkey and Tertlit wrote. “This is true both across countries, where women have most rights in the richest countries, and in time series data: women have slowly improved their legal position in parallel with fast improvements in the standard of living.”
    Thus granting more power and independence leads to more wealth overall. Greater independence for women economically can reverberate in the home, creating benefits there as well. Working mothers are positive role models for children because they exhibit not only a strong work ethic seen in few other people but an ability to be both strong and compassionate.

In addition, the fact that women represent 54 percent of the population means that extending rights and freedoms to women could double the possible output of society in any number of ways. Allowing women to serve on the front lines in warfare, for example, would open the doors for some highly talented female soldiers to enter our army, thereby increasing the strength of our military.

    Even boys who are well off have a stake in the empowerment of women. By perpetuating a male-female dichotomy (the idea that men and women are completely divorced from each other and thus at odds), those who perpetuate sexism end up hurting themselves. By trying to raise themselves above women, men create for themselves the idea of the “macho man” to distinguish themselves from women. By pinning this label to themselves in order to raise themselves above women, the sexist invites his own set of stereotypes: the stereotype of the brutish, beer-swilling, impervious to emotion, and almost sub-human man exemplified by characters like Homer Simpson. Unfortunately, these negative stereotypes are applied to men in general, thereby hurting themselves. Sexists can then use this as a justification for discrimination against women, perpetuating the ugly cycle of sexism and intolerance.
    This macho mindset invented by men to justify oppression of women comes with its own host of problems, almost all of them borne by men. Macho ideas of violence being the way to settle problems lead to violence that is borne almost entirely by men, and the accompanying higher prison rates for men that come with higher violence rates. The idea of male toughness manifests itself in the belief that men should be emotionless, which can cause emotions to boil up inside a person, eventually causing them to be overwhelmed.  
    All these arguments, of course, just address the impact of women’s rights on men. By their very definition, women’s rights campaigns further the causes of equality and liberty for all persons. All people deserve rights, so any morally upright man ought to recognize that denying women equal rights is akin to denying blacks or Native Americans rights. No one who calls themselves a decent person can ignore the plight of women, which is arguably the biggest issue facing the world today. For example, the violent, macho mindset of male dominance fuels war because it perpetuates the belief that combat is an acceptable solution to problems. In addition, denying women the ability to work or succeed in business removes more than half of the potential innovators and laborers from the economy.
    The positive effects of women’s empowerment can be felt at the high school level as well. Many girls are intimidated by the aggressive nature of class discussions, which causes valid and important opinions to be left out of discussions.
    Unfortunately, men cannot instantly become ardent feminists, even after reading this article. To achieve such a radical change in men’s mindset, constant reminders of the necessity of recognizing women’s rights issues are needed. The school happens to be the perfect environment for this. Even a minuscule fraction of the time spent by students in class, if used effectively, could help bring about an acceptance of women’s rights concerns amongst the male population of Palo Alto High School. Ideally, these lectures about women’s issues would be done in freshman world history, or sophomore contemporary world history, since sexism is a global problem.
    If more men can start realizing that women’s rights issues affect everyone, their mindsets might start to shift. Even if the only change that comes out of women’s rights being preached in history class is that some students are more polite to women, that will be a victory for humans of both genders across the globe.

Somaly Mam and Patriarchy

Mam was sold into sexual slavery at age 14 by a man she knew only as “grandfather”, although he was not related to him in any way. “Grandfather” was in fact Mam’s owner, and her his slave. For the next decade she was a sex slave, better known as a prostitute, forced by her pimp to see an average of six clients per day. If her clients were dissatisfied with her, they would beat and rape her, before giving her back to her pimp, who would torture her, usually by covering her with maggots. When she was in her early 20s, Mam escaped, and decided that she wanted to dedicate her life to helping those she left behind. In 1996, she founded AFESIP (a French acronym for Acting for Women in Distressed Situations), which has already saved over 6,000 girls from sexual slavery.

It is indisputable that Mam, who has survived the years of rape, torture and brutal oppression to rise up to bravely fight the rich and powerful brothels, is a hero. And it’s also indisputable that the sex trade, and the trade in humans in general, drips with evil. The sex trade industry, which relies on the general oppression and degradation of females to bring in money, makes over $36 billion per year, making it the second largest source of cash for organized crime.

The abomination of sexual slavery brings up an interesting question: how on Earth do they get away with it? Hasn’t the billions of dollars worth of foreign and thousands of UN peacekeepers been enough to stop this atrocity? Unfortunately, the UN armies and legions of good-intentioned aid workers like Mam have been only treating the symptoms. The root of the problem lies in one of those big words radical-feminists love to throw around: The Patriarchy.

In feminist jargon, the Patriarchy refers to the status quo system of male dominance over women. Many scholars trace the orgin of Patriarchy back to the days of Abraham, where they say it originated because women had the burden of child birth and raising the children, and thus were excluded from the “God-Israelite” covenant outlined in the Torah. The male dominance quickly took off from there, with women’s rights shrinking at an alarming pace. Soon, male dominance become just a part of life, no more extraordinary than breathing. Mam regularly mentions this in her autobiography, stating that things like women not being allowed to choose their husbands and women being treated as chattel as “just the way things were”.

Although most want to believe that we left this “age of dominance” in 1919, with the passage of the 19th amendment which guaranteed women the right to vote, Mam’s story proves that much of the world still regards women to be second class citizens. Even the United States, the self-proclaimed “Most Christian Country on Earth”, boasts a booming prostitution industry.
Despite their endless whining about the endless harms of Patriarchy, few feminists will volunteer to offer a solution. This is understandable, however, seeing how deeply entrenched in society the Patriarchal system is. Most major world religions and even governmental systems (Aristotle’s most famous treaty of government contends that the state evolved from the Patriarchal family, although most scholars try to ignore that part) are rooted in Patriarchy. Nothing short of a violent revolution, followed by a complete gutting and rebuilding of society would be required to eliminate the Patriarchy. It looks unlikely that the Patriarchy will go away, since it is so deeply entrenched in society. Does this mean that the efforts of people like Mam are in vain? No, since she is brave enough to bring the issue to the table, putting her miles above most.