We told men not to cry, so they didn’t. We were so focused on preparing girls for motherhood that we failed to prepare boys for fatherhood. So when they became fathers, they got frustrated and abandoned their wives and girlfriends to raise their children.
Now we have too many fatherless children roaming the streets, murdering people, sexually harassing women online and some wasting their lives in jail.
Isn’t it easier to blame the women who raised these children than the fathers who were absent?
Instead of addressing the problem from the root, we grip the branches of the tree blaming the one movement that has opened our eyes to the dysfunctional social structure.
It baffles me when I see men and women blame feminism for the destructive society we have today. Is it because we only emphasize the impact of feminism on women and disregard the effects it has on men?
Feminism encouraged men to express their emotions and stop seeing vulnerability as a weakness. Most men today seek companionship with women who allow them to communicate their fears and cry when they want to. Something men were told to never do. To never cry and to always show superiority in everything were the core traits of being a man.
However, times have changed and men are more human now than ever. They acknowledge the wisdom of women because they know women are just as intelligent and brave as they are.
Most men are working less today because women contribute financially to the family. They no longer have to work until they are fatigued to provide for their families.
Even some men want to be partnered with independent women who can assist in their leadership and career not dormant like older generation wives used to be.
Since the feminist movement, the rate of houseowners has increased from 48 percent in 1940 to 66 percent currently. About 47 percent of houseowners are married couples while single women are 8 percent higher than single men.
Another report shows that co-parent homes are saving 50 percent more on housing compared to single-person housing expenses.
The reason is that partners split bills on utility and mortgage while the single person covers their bills alone. Although some partners bring debts and poor credit scores into the relationship which can affect their finances.
However, the main bone of contention is that women working and earning wages have contributed to reducing men’s financial burden — which couldn’t have happened without feminism.
Today, most women have a career and earn more money than their male spouses all because feminism fought to give women the right to be educated.
We see lower mortality rates among pregnant women, all thanks to feminism for introducing birth control so women can decide the number of years they will raise their children before devoting their lives to their careers.
Women can brag a little about their independence and body autonomy because feminism revealed women’s strength as human beings and fought to ensure we have our human rights enforced.
Despite woke feminists destroying the ideology behind the feminist movement we cannot ignore the benefits women’s rights have contributed in the socioeconomy of the world.
But why did the feminist movement begin in the first place? Why did women feel the need to fight for their human rights if they were happily dependent on their men?
The truth is most women weren’t happy in their marriage. Traditionally, purity was valued, and premarital sexual relations were unheard of. Most men were forced into marriage when they impregnated women out of wedlock so they took out their frustration on their wives.
Before feminism, men legally sold their wives as slaves. Some got away with killing their wives because the law didn’t prosecute such offences as murder and women we told to never speak of their abuse in public and to endure whatever trauma they receive from their husbands.
Women had no rights over their children without their husband’s permission. Women had no right to education and couldn’t hold a public office or be hired to earn wages.
We wouldn’t have feminism today if men weren’t abusing their rights and oppressing women.
In the 19th century, the feminist movement began because women got fed up with marital and societal oppression so they fought for their rights to education, equality and fundamental human rights for both sexes.
I believe it’s hypocritical for a well-educated and independent woman with a voice in society to come out and outrightly refute the impact of feminism in her life and say she’s strongly against feminism.
Although extreme feminists known as woke feminists are trying to destroy the balance true feminism has achieved, we cannot disregard the reformation feminism has brought in liberating oppressed men and women.
Women of today have almost the same rights as men. When I say almost, I refer to the restrictions on body autonomy, disparities in domestic labor, inaccessibility to justice, and freedom of movement and behavior.
According to researchers, 44 percent of women graduated from college compared to 39 percent of men who finished college. Women make up 47 percent of the workforce and 17 percent earn more than men. While the average woman earns 82 cents of every dollar a man makes, which is 21 percent more compared to the 61 percent it was in 1960.
In leadership, women’s participation in politics increased from 15 percent to 26 percent. In some countries, women hold up to 50 percent of legislative positions. And we have voting rights now.
Therefore, no modern woman should say they are better off living like women of the 18th century, a time when women had no independence to make choices that suited them.
Since the late 1940s, women increasingly have entered the workforce, prompting many to delay marriage to pursue their careers, further leading them to put off marriage and children completely.
However, speaking of feminism being the reason behind the rise of fatherless children.
I refute that claim because men were already deadbeats before feminism was established. In fact, it was one of the contributing factors that led to single motherhood.
Men were abandoning their families to work internationally, some were sent to fight wars, while some were in castration. However, most of them got fed up with being sole breadwinners and abandoned their families to live with their mistress.
Women weren’t earning wages so a lot of families were starving when their husbands left them.
This led to the Motherhood Endowment scheme to enable mothers and children to feed in their husband’s absence. The scheme recognized childraising and housework as work requiring economic reward. With the allowance women were provided, most women didn’t feel the need to have their husbands back.
Why?
Because most men were abusive to their wives. Some women felt liberated when their husbands were away which encouraged them to fight for more rights to be included in the workforce and be independent.
So when you think about it, feminism started because men weren’t held unaccountable for their actions. They emotionally and financially abused their wives and children but were not punished for the offences.
As women got more rights, their choices to be more independent increased. Just as men exercised more independence in patriarchy, women now exercise more rights to their independence and want patriarchy completely abolished.
We cannot deny that patriarchy is about the oppression and emancipation of women. Everything about patriarchy is to get women to relinquish their human rights legally and be under the control of men.
But who revealed the flaws of patriarchy to women? Men did.
If men weren’t deadbeats and abusive, women wouldn’t need to step up to protect and provide for their children.
So if we are to blame anyone for the fatherless nation it’s the government, for encouraging men to be deadbeats — for not holding men accountable and men — for choosing to abandon their families.
Also, more women are becoming single mothers because men are choosing to be absent from their children’s lives in order to avoid child support and alimony.
I do not deny the fact that family law is biased against men. However, men who avoid their responsibilities as fathers outweigh those who get ripped off by women.
Statistically speaking, 83% of children live with their mothers. Out of 51 percent of single mothers who have some sort of child support agreement, only 22% receive child support.
While 24 percent of custodian parents live in poverty, which means custodians receiving child support still struggle to raise their kids. Compared to custodian dads, custodian moms work part-time and earn less than their male counterparts.
We raised girls and women to nurture and care for their children, but we didn’t raise boys to be fathers so most men do not believe it’s their responsibility to raise their children and perform housework as well.
To men, being a provider and protector doesn’t include being part of the child’s day-to-day activities. They feel entitled to neglect their responsibilities to mothers.
Most men deny pregnancies the moment they realize their girlfriend is pregnant to avoid their responsibilities.
In 2021, children raised by single mothers were estimated at 81 percent. Another study shows that 40 percent of children were from cohabiting mothers while 13 percent were solo mothers.
It’s ridiculous how we blame single mothers for making their children fatherless when these women are actually victims of the circumstances.
However, the rate of fatherless children will be higher now abortion is illegal unless men are held accountable to be equally responsible for any pregnancy they are medically proven to be responsible for.
Although in 2022, the Unborn Child Support Act was passed to ensure men are responsible for their children from conception, we are yet to see this law enforced.
We can’t argue that the lack of stigma around unwed mothers contributes to the rise in single motherhood, however, most mothers would rather have a two-parent household if men weren’t tucking tails and running.
The problem remains that most men like the bachelor’s lifestyle more and continue to live like bachelors even after marriage because it enables them to be irresponsible and unaccountable when they get a woman pregnant.
Until a decade ago, most deadbeats weren’t stigmatised. It was recently, that media and psychologists started revealing the implications of fatherless homes that we discovered that most men weren’t performing their duties as fathers and that the majority weren’t even in their children’s lives.
I think it’s time we stopped asking why a growing number of children are fatherless and start implementing reforms tailored to make men and women responsible parents.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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