Abstract
Most of the countries are claiming that gender equality is being embraced by the society, and there are tons of paper to prove that. However, that is not exactly true in daily lives. This research will be mainly focused on Asian countries, and why women, who are independent before marriage, change their values after marriage, and how does it relate to the masculinity or patriarchy. I will be giving examples of my own family members’ experiences, and discussing whether women realize that they sometimes also hold the values of misogyny against each other. According to Cambridge dictionary, misogyny is defined as “feelings of hating of women, or the belief that men are much better than women,” and masculinity is described as “the characteristics that are traditionally thought to be typical of or suitable for men.” For example, in an Asian family, the parents decide to put their son only into international school, but not include the daughter. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to explore how patriarchal society develops masculinity and misogyny, how these characteristics limit the development of women and their self-actualization, and objectify women.
Background
Myanmar, my hometown country, has a de facto woman leader as the State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. According to Nora Pistor’s article, “What feminism means in Myanmar,” she said Myanmar has made a progress in gender equality greater than the neighboring countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh, Laos and India. But the problem is women are still have to suffer from the masculinist’s hit verbally or physically in everyday lives. “Women are nearly like slaves for men,” a woman from Chin State women’s organization said in the article.
In Amy Qin’s article, “A Prosperous China Says Men Preferred And Women Lose,” she points out that President Xi Jinping “has called on women to embrace their unique role in the family and shoulder the responsibilities of taking care of the old and young, as well as educating children.” Moreover, because of “a man’s law,” which is basically about if a house was bought before marriage, it must turn back to the buyer because that house was usually under the husband’s name, even though it was the wife who paid the monthly installments, women are afraid to divorce as they have to take the risk of losing everything even in an abusive relationships.
Even though “with China’s rapid economic transformation, women are living longer, earning more money and graduating from university in greater numbers than ever before,” women are requested that they are still not good enough by the society if they do not get married or give birth, which in turn makes women never ever believe in themselves or are confident in capable of something apart from households.
Then, “Malaysian government apologizes after advising wives to avoid nagging during corona virus lockdown,” in this news article, we are aware of that how could Women’s Development Department of the country demand women even to wear makeup during lockdown instead of concerning the rise of domestic violence. Overall, we realize that all these kinds of values or perceptions have been started from the government, therefore, we can imagine how hard can it be for women to avoid these meaningless strikes every day.
Literature review
Back to my own country, Myanmar, women are allowed to pursue their goals in every field apart from religious and military filed. But it is kind of ironic that because around 90 percent of the population are Buddhists, and even the country is democratic, actually the military power is still there. Women are not allowed to stand near the Buddha statue, and it makes all the believers accept the value of men are always superior than women. Moreover, this in turn creates the atmosphere of masculinity in the community. It is true that there is no restrictions to against women from doing something in the society, however, the problem is when women enter in a relationship, they change their perception slowly under the invisible influence of their love ones or husbands.
For example, a woman who had a wonderful career before she got married, but she chose or is forced to give up in order to take care of the family, which would not bring her anything financially back. Then, the situation left her one choice which is dependent on her husband. At the same time, women were so naive that they thought they could depend on somebody for the rest of life or they believe that marriage is the only one important mission in their life.
We are aware of what makes them to hold that attitude in that way now. If we look up the whole position carefully, it all points out that these values are being practiced for decades and decades, and they are influenced by the government or media propaganda of women need love (it is not true because everyone needs love regardless of who they are), women cannot perform professionally because they have “menstruation”, women cannot think rationally, it is better to let your men work because they are more capable than you, and all you have to do is take care of the home and do households.
These are all prejudices against women, and they are hard to change because we are not allowed to question the elders’ saying like “never question God.” Now, one of the consequences is that women are seeing their husbands as a resource, who can provide them food and place, which in turn makes them worried of from being cheated or grabbed by another woman. So, the ideas of misogyny are not only being practiced by men on women but also women themselves accept these concepts.
It is still nothing if you made a bad choice to whom you got married, and you wanted to try to rely on yourself. But you could not divorce or end the relationship because you realize you are not strong and brave enough to start all over again. You have already been influenced by those masculinist or misogynist language, and they made you believe you deserve it.
It is never too late for women to start a new life or say no to those meaningless and horrible judgements against them. However, when the country’s leader or the government has already made laws which are against women to be financially independent after divorces, there is no doubt that the society can be still filled with masculinist thoughts on the women. Yes, at the same time, women are under the anxiety of being leftover women before they get marriage. That is all because the county is promoting that kind of thinking, which is are only complete when she is married. The facts of how much she earns, how well she is educated or how good she is as a citizen, they are not taken into account and force women to go through the trap of getting marriage.
Objectives
This research focused on what makes women to give up their career, which is the foundation of being financially independent from others and forget to develop personality independent. We are aware of that patriarchal society and masculinist like to objectify women, and expect women to be obedient. So, the research aims to explore why women accept those masculinity and misogyny concepts, and do they realize those languages in daily lives. And, if they realize why are they still silent about those prejudices. Another goal is to determine what makes them to expect someone who would save or lead them for the rest of life. We recognize that these sexist comments can influence women from what they originally want to be and disrupt them from being independent. Therefore, this research targets to observe how women try to avoid comments from the society in order to fulfill their goals when a country already promotes the gender stereotypes.
This research aims to point out what made women to live choose to marry. Why the patriarchy society materialize women that they are the ones who need marriage and child, or their existence means one thing to give birth? So, do women realize these, and how do they change upon seeing marriage nowadays?
Methods
I will adopt the primary survey for the research in which I will take the survey by interviewing different groups of people. I believe I can get the primary information through interviews because I can ask the questions that are related to my research, and I can finally come out with the conclusion of my claim about women. Following questions are the ones that I will ask my interviewees.
- What kind of environment do you live in? (Embrace gender equality, patriarchy or misogyny)
- How do you know that you live in that kind of environment or which comments have you experienced about those characteristics?
- Do you agree with that both man and woman have to work nowadays in a family in order to sustain a certain level of standard living?
- Do you accept that traditional stereotypes of women should not be propagated anymore by the government or media?
- Do you think that women can get the same opportunity as men in the future?
I chose these questions because firstly, I need a basic information of which environment they live in, so I can articulate the proportion of the gender equality based on that. Second, I also require the facts of how they know the situation of the society they live in. Therefore, I can draw a general picture with those comments they answer. Since these are all primary messages, they are helpful to make my argument clear, focused and precise. Next, we know that it is almost impossible to support an ordinary family only with one’s income and to maintain the standard living within the community. Then, I will ask them about the stereotypes because I do not accept those concepts, and I do believe that the society should embrace individual differences instead of those working on those gender stereotypes.
Conclusion
Nowadays, most women have the same degree as their love ones, however, it is always being a woman to step back from the workplace, or give up to self-actualization process, and have to take the burden, which patriarchal society called responsibility, for being a married women, in which I am not discussing about women who have to marry someone for physiological or safety needs, or who chose to be a housewife intentionally. The world is changing from every aspect, and it is clear that is not enough to distinguish the whole group people with two labels: man or women. We realize that only if we encourage individual differences, our environment will be more comfortable to live with. Indeed, we do not have the right to talk about how a woman should live or criticize the choice of her lifestyle, however, at least women should be given the same opportunity as men, and make them realize that they can also be the leader of their lives.
References
- Amy Qin, 2019. “A Prosperous China Says Men Preferred, and Women Lose.” The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/world/asia/china-women-discrimination.html
2. Nora Pistor, 2014. “What Feminism Means in Myanmar.” Myanmar Times.
3. Joshua Berlinger, 2020. “Malaysian government apologizes after advising wives to avoid nagging during corona virus lockdown.” CNN.
