Men and Women: They Should be Different.

            So, this may be one of those more controversial topics that I mentioned in my Intro post. This week in class we began to talk about gender, and gender roles. Recently, there has been a lot of press about gender, and the ME-TOO movement, and all of these other problems with men. Gender (male and female) has been around since humans have inherited the earth. The two genders, male and female, were ordained from the very beginning (see https://www.lds.org/study/manual/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng) This is what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believes about gender and gender roles. Personally, I think that men should be the provider of the family. They should be the ones going out and earning money for their families. Women should stay at home and take care of the children. Children are better off when they are raised by a mother who stays at home. By no means am I saying that women should not go out and work. My wife worked while we were in school and she only stopped when she was pregnant and couldn’t work anymore. Women should go and get a post-secondary degree. If they aren’t married yet, go and get your degree and start your career. More power to you.

            Unfortunately, today the roles of genders have almost been lost under the tumult of voices that are clamoring for two seconds of attention. Again, I’m not saying that all of the movements are bad. Women should be treated equally and should have the respect they deserve. But to be honest some of the movements against men like the “Free-Bleed” movement are trying to put men down and are saying that they are oppressed. Men and women, male and female are both important. They both have their roles that only they can achieve. A woman isn’t supposed to do some of the things that men do. For example, women probably shouldn’t be in jobs that require raw physical strength, like firefighters. Men are just a better fit. Women can still have positions of power in the workplace and there are still many walls that we have to break down. Men aren’t supposed to take on the traditional roles of women either. If we want to create equality, we need to stick to traditional roles. We don’t teach boys to not be boys. There is nothing inherently wrong with two boys wrestling for fun. We teach boys how to respect women, not to “not rape” them. We teach women that they are valued and that they are important. This teaching goes back to the family. The parents, mom and dad, teach the kids these values that seem to have been lost from humanity. We don’t teach our girls that men are evil and that they have to fend for themselves and that getting married is just a trap. We don’t teach our boys to suppress natural tendencies to run around and play more roughly than girls. We teach them to respect each other and that there are differences between girls and boys. Overall men and women have their own different quirks and ways that sets them apart. Men and women should be different. We should not be trying to suppress boys and force them to play with dolls and to not roughhouse. Boys can play with traditional girl toys and girls with traditional boy toys, but please don’t force it. Let boys go out and run around and pretend to be action heroes Let girls pretend to be princesses. Men and women are both special in their own way and we need those differences to continue as humanity.