Miss

For thousands or even millions of years, almost ever since mankind began, women were considered weaker than men. Women were the ones tending their homes and looking after their offspring. Men were the heroes who risked their lives in search of food to keep their families alive.

Thus, over the thousands of years of human civilization the belief that men are superior in strength and intelligence is deeply embedded in everyone's minds. Feminism grew popular only these 50 years. Let us be realistic, can such a 'young' ideal replace a deep-seated belief of thousands of years overnight? While we are seeing more and more gender equality in our lives, deep in our minds, there is still a difference between men and women.

It is true that we women have come a long way in fighting for respect; however, we still have a long way to go. Irrational traditions and beliefs die hard. In some parts of the world, married men having affairs is regarded as normal; if a single woman flirted with a man, she is a whore. If a woman kills herself when she is widowed, she is true to her love; but if a man does the same, he is stupid. If there is true equality between the sexes, shouldn't men and women be judged the same way?

Many people, under the influence of popular movies, songs and soap operas, believe that women are superficial and fickle. Sadly, there is some truth to that. Shallow behaviour of shallow women undermines the efforts of countless feminist who had fought so hard for the rights we enjoy today.

We fight for more equality and higher status. We speak up against unfairness and prejudice. We believe that we can do just as well, or even better than men. But before we walk around preaching feminism and denouncing male supremacy, we should first examine our actions. Do our actions prove that we are intelligent or capable? Or do we act like foolish women so often portrayed on TV? In my opinion, the best way to pave the road to a fairer world is to show the world, through our actions, that we are equal to men, both in terms of intelligence and capability.