Between Men and Women

Intro: So, originally this was a subject of English essay given by our English teacher. The title was (yes it's awful, but we are not allowed to change it) It's Still a Man's World - True or Not?

We Finns (yes, I'm Finnish, I study English as a foreign language) have a habit of limiting strictly the word amount of essays of foreign language due to the fact that we have to learn that to manage in the matriculation exam. So our absolute max limit of words was 250 which is NOT enough for me. It feels uncomfortable having to count the words without letting out the real creative self properly, but if I top 255 (yes, error marginal of 5 words is still acceptable) they'll start taking minus points by every word!

So entered the essay here adding some of the things I wanted to write for the original essay but couldn't fit them in there.

Oh and don't stare at the generalisations too much. Would take a whole book to cover all the view points. :)

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So, It's Still a Man's World?

Since the dawn time, we have seen the pattern of men doing the heavy lifting and women keeping their bosom in the safety of the kitchen taking care of a pack of children. Maybe this is because when we were still half living in trees it was natural to us. Females had to take care of the offspring and secure their survival while males, whose body build was naturally stronger, were off somewhere hunting, gathering food or just fighting with other guys who happened to pee against the wrong tree. Some still see it as a natural order of things. Along the time the basic relationships between men and women seem to have set on their tracks, however in the world today these tracks seem to slowly fade away.

Women today may have more options on career choices and their assets are valued more, but still many have to battle in the jungle of life by wearing the familiar war mask of lipstick and eyeliner. They are still considered as some sort of ‘eye candy’, as a piece of meat. This view, which men seem to emphasise, does sell cars hand over fist. But it isn’t amusing when these stereotypes stress the lives of normal women who just try to survive through a hard day of work without being harassed or frowned upon. Some women do seem provoke the strange ideal image of the female  body and nature too, without thinking through how it all might turn out. Reasons for this kind of self-destructive behaviour are hard to determine. Is it just longing for acceptance? Maybe it's a way of getting one's attention?

In some cases however, instead of women, men seem to be the ones encountering discrimination. For example you don’t meet so many single fathers as you do mothers. This might be affected by the fact that court usually favours the female side in custody cases. It’s sexist in both points of view; women are once again seen as the mere nurturing creatures and men are seen as something different as if they weren’t able to perform as well as women when it comes to taking care of children. Usually court does weigh their options carefully, but since it is lead by humans...it is bound to make humane errors. Even fatal ones, for women are not always the nurturing ones. There's dark side in there too, maybe just well hidden. Males tend to show their violence more easily. Women tend to hide it. Of course talking about the violent behaviour of women is a taboo in society so we must 'hush hush' now.

Despite the constant difficulties, in western societies women have achieved rather high positions. It seems that there are more and more women amongst the world leaders. Women seem to climb on the corporate ladder in everything: academic professions, organizations and general corporations. Though these brave fighters have to manage with less numbers on their pay check that their male colleagues. The sudden rise of women might be connected to the issue that studies have pointed out: Men are dropping out of school earlier than women. They don’t continue to as high level of education as women do, maybe because they are less ambitious, patient or maybe it's because they go after the sexist macho occupations that don’t even require high level of education. Who knows?

The status of women still seems good in west compared to many eastern countries, where women are mostly considered as the property of men. They are under the possession of their fathers till the day they get married, or when they become the property of their husbands instead. This is due to the strong position of male-oriented religions and culture that have left a notable mark on, therefore inferior, women. It is undeniable that it’s still a man’s world out there. But someday men might be the ones having to struggle. And that’s karma.