I'm not a feminist, and I don't believe in women empowerment.
Or other gender biased concepts....
Women empowerment is a contradictive concept that offers no long-term solution to where we are as humans. Upon walking into a bookstore, there were isles of books supporting feminism, directed at little girls. Let's stop and think for a minute, what if those books supported men and were directed at boys? wouldn't we be created a bigger divide between genders?
There are many reasons "women empowerment" does not work, and should be replaced by other concepts:
One. it Implies that women are weaker.
Help and support is always appreciated, until you decide that someone is better deserving of help because of their gender (this really doesn’t say much about who they are, but might make you a judgmental person) we don't control the body we are born into. Each individual has different strengths and weaknesses, and theres no shame in having either.
Two. It fights fire with fire
We’re not improving on who we are a society when trying to solve one problem by going to the other extreme. Which means, we’re not moving forwards, but rather sideways. If each person would expand their network of support, asking for help when needed and offering help when able, then we could all move forward together.
Three. the meanest person to a woman, is quite often another woman.
Very often a well meaning one too, be it a mother, a sister, a friend, a teacher, or a boss (not to mention.. women forget to be kind to themselves.. patterns?)
Four. What kind of message are we sending to the next generation?
That girls are better? stronger? Tougher? smarter??
I walked into a bookstore and found shelves and shelves of books directed at girls, with concepts that should be irrelevant to gender.
A coding book for girls? Why? Why not ALL children?
Five. Are we creating a bigger problem by dividing the next generations further?
Six. (Personal Note) where does this leave my children?
My Son came home from school one day wondering why he wasn’t a girl.
I will stand for mothers, because motherhood is sometimes hard and quite lonely. yet I recognize that day to day struggles of life are hard and often lonely as well. So I will also stand for fathers choosing to brave it up against the mainstream.
Solution?
perhaps if we instead said:
Child empowerment?
Human empowerment?
Parent empowerment? this is not to take away from mothers, but to acknowledge that fathers too could feel lost and not in control, but we have nurtured a society that lets them be invisible from the role.