Male Entitlement and the Marginalization of Women

The Essay

I'd like to start this discourse with this: fuck the patriarchy. The patriarchy is the reason why misogyny is embedded in society, why male entitlement is institutionalized, and why gender-based violence is a systemic cultural issue. It is because of the patriarchy that many men think they are God's gift to women, making them feel as though they are entitled to women's time and affections. I'd like to make a case against these statements. Men are not entitled to women reciprocating their affections. For centuries, the patriarchal society has pushed for the male agenda - women are expected to remain passive and enduring for their sake. The culture of male entitlement reinforces gender inequality, and it has become such an alarmingly normalized part of our daily lives.

Even in the early days of courtship in the medieval times, men were expected to be the pursuers and the women the pursued. The men were encouraged to be aggressive in this pursuit, while women had to remain passive. This expectation for female passivity exists to this day. The misogynistic society we live in reinforces women who follow the status quo but punishes those who don't. In my experience as a woman, it seems as though women are treated almost like second-class citizens while the male agenda reigns supreme.

The pervasive culture of male entitlement is encouraged by the misogyny embedded in society. Men are taught that female sexual liberation means that women are generally available for their use, for their pleasure. Society rewards men for persistence in courtship - although I'm not saying that persistence is bad, it's just that society often forgets that there is a fine line between persistence and oppressiveness. Male "persistence" means that women are supposed to kowtow to what they want - essentially, a no is almost always taken as an eventual yes.

This "no is never a no but an eventual yes" mentality is a classic representation of the expectation for female passivity and endurance of discomfort for men. It begs the question: "Do women's feelings and autonomy still exist?" since it seems as though male pleasure and satisfaction at the expense of female pain and discomfort has become the norm. A negative reaction from the woman is normally met with castigation, sometimes even violence. Society teaches men that it's perfectly okay to objectify and even violate the bodily integrity of women, in turn marginalizing women and teaching them to adjust to what men want.

At this point, you're probably thinking: "Wow, is this woman a feminazi or something? She's been accusing men of marginalizing women without concrete examples so far." I'd like to add another disclaimer here: I am not a feminazi. Forgive me if I come off that way in my essay - I would never support sexism over gender equality.

Anyway, I digress. Let me give you concrete examples then. Maren Sanchez, a 16-year-old, was stabbed to death in her high school hallway by the boy she declined to go to prom with. The infamous 2014 Isla Vista killings were committed by Elliot Rodger, who wanted to punish women for rejecting him. Avery Latham strangled a woman who refused his advances and left her for dead. James Graham broke into Joanie Yount's home after she told him to leave her alone and set it on fire. An unnamed woman in the Philippines had her and her child's throats slit after she rebuffed the romantic advances of her husband's friend. I haven't even discussed the #MeToo movement and the events that sparked it - although that will probably be too long, thus I will leave that topic for another time. Know that I'm not discounting it, however, I just have to wrap this up soon so you, my dear readers, will not become bored.

These examples are not isolated cases. These are systemic. Male entitlement is systemic. People often seem to forget that women are important members of society too. The patriarchy has designated us as the "weaker sex" (which is partially rooted in biology, although I think that just because women serve a different biological role doesn't mean we are the weaker sex), but this should not diminish our humanity, our autonomy. Women deserve the same amount of respect and consideration men receive on a daily basis.

Male entitlement is but one symptom of the patriarchal agenda. What about us, the women? Society needs to learn that we have the right to say no and to be taken seriously for it. We are not prizes to be won, nor objects to be owned. We owe nothing to men - they need to learn that they are not entitled to receive anything from us.