By Rose U., TIWP Student

“That’s not gender roles, that’s just sexism.” A friend of mine said while out at lunch. Shockingly, however, this was in reference to a comment he’d made himself. Even more shocking, he had no remorse. Or is it shocking?

It’s hard to tell, everything seems so normalized.

Sorry, I shouldn’t talk about this.

I shouldn’t talk about how women make 82 cents for every dollar their male coworker makes. I shouldn’t talk about how women are still oppressed despite centuries of work trying to fight it. Nor should I talk about how shocking it was to find progressive ideology in a kids movie recently (shout out Minions & Monsters), or how there’s more research surrounding premature male pattern baldness than endometriosis (which actively has no known cure).

Not to sound whiny (or like “a bad feminist” by saying that – or like a “foid” by saying that – or like a “pick-me girl” by saying that… and so forth), but despite how “annoying” women are called for even mentioning it, misogyny is far more widespread than anyone really realizes.

Women have a worse chance going to the bathroom than men, where the very action can become dangerous for them in some parts of the world. In one of my favorite books, Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez, she cites a 2015 survey that 12.5% of women in Mumbai’s slums defecate in the open at night because of the ever present danger they face to walk 58 meters, “the average distance of the community toilet from their homes.” In addition, despite the unconventional conditions for a basic human right, going in the open isn’t much safer: “there is a very real danger of sexual assault from men who lurk near and on the routes to areas which are known to be used by women when they need to relieve themselves.”

In some parts of the world, we can’t even shit in peace.

Yet we can’t talk about this without men flipping the script to victimize themselves. According to a survey by King’s College London and Ipsos, an astounding 57% of Gen Z men believe “the promotion of women’s equality has gone so far that it actively discriminates against men.” Any problem that women speak up about, any situation that women are harmed by, men argue that it’s not fair. They have to be the loudest in the room, they have to be the center of attention, and everything always has to favor them.

Here’s some fun movie trivia. Remember Barbie? The movie that comedian Jo Koy joked was just about a “plastic doll with big boobies? The very movie that Bill Maher described in Entertainment Weekly as being “preachy” and “man-hating”, going so far as to state that the movie itself was a “zombie lie” for exaggerating modern gender dynamics? The movie that only won an award for the song sung by Ryan Gosling titled “I’m Just Ken?”

The movie’s international release date was July 21, 2023 – a month before tampons were tested using real blood. Prior to this, the industry relied on dyed saline solution to research something we were putting in our bodies.

We can’t win, and yet we can’t even talk about it.