Do Women Really Want Equality?

Nikita Coulombe
15 min readMay 11, 2016
Image © Michael Maslin — Get a print here

Do women really want equality? It’s a question I think every one of us needs to ask ourselves because frankly I don’t think many of us do.

Feminists and feminist organizations gain support by emphasizing “equal rights” while de-emphasizing “equal responsibilities.” They point out the ways that life can be more challenging for women but ignore the ways that life can be more challenging for men. They paradoxically suggest that women are weak, that the “patriarchy” is against us, and therefore we deserve all sorts of programs and special benefits just to be on a level playing field with men yet in the same breath present women as superheroes who do it all and have it all and don’t need help from institutions, men, or anyone else.

It’s mental gymnastics not based in reality.

Here in the West, when it comes to career opportunities and access to social support, women today have more paths to success open to us and options than we have ever had. In many ways, we have more benefits and support available to us than men do, and we need only take a closer look at men’s lives to see it.

Most of us don’t want to pay half the bill on dates, we don’t want to work dirty and dangerous jobs, we don’t want to be drafted if there was a war, we don’t have to prove to a court that our children need us after divorce, and we don’t want to…

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Nikita Coulombe
Nikita Coulombe

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