The Sexes
Montreal, Mid 2002

It's hard to disagree with the complaints about gender inequality that women bring up. Men's expectations about how women should look and act box women in, forcing them to play certain roles and enforcing a 24 hour-a-day 7 day-a-week sexualization of their bodies. I can imagine that it must be constricting at times.

But the power struggle is waged in the other direction too. Men are raised from birth to fill the stereotype of the competitive male, the hero who flexes his arm hoping to set himself apart from the rest in an attempt to catch a woman's attention. And no matter how tired his arm might get, the beautiful woman in the middle who he must impress controls him, forcing him to try and be strong. There's probably more of a balance between the sexes than a heirarchy. We both control each other, one side boxing in, the other pushing to the periphery.

We hear women drawing attention to their side of the power relationship more than men, especially in the latter years of the century, but this will probably change over the next few decades as men react to feminism. Masculism , a new ideology that looks at the issue from the male side, puts the spotlight on perceived gender imbalances in universities, 60% female, 40% male, and skewed divorce custody results in order to demonstrate its points. The struggle for balance continues.