“Since we all came from a woman, got our name from a woman, and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women, why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women, time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies that will hate the ladies that make the babies
And since a man can't make one he has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up, I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up” – Tupac Shakur
The act of inciting change goes hand in hand with the art of asking the right questions. After all, the moon would remain untouched if brave men had never asked themselves what it would be like to walk on its surface. Revolutionary inventions like the car would have never come to be if no one had ever asked what it would be like to go faster. Our country may still remain segregated if we had never asked ourselves as a society whether or not racism is okay. When these questions were asked, historic men and women responded with answers powerful enough to incite a difference in the world. Maybe when Tupac released Keep Ya Head Up in 1993 the rap scene wasn’t big enough for his voice to be heard by the public at large, or perhaps he asked the question too bluntly, but for whatever reason, it seems the world wasn’t ready to respond when Tupac asked us “Do we hate our women?”
This question is a complicated one for many men to respond to because our initial reaction is to act as if the question itself is absurd. How can anyone even ask if men hate women? Of course we don’t! Men love women! And from many angles this is true; men do love women, but from my experience man’s love for women waivers with changing circumstance. Sure men love women, but how far does that love extend? If it was an unconditional love, then surely women wouldn’t be afraid to report sexual assault. Surely women wouldn't experience unequal pay in the workplace. Surely women wouldn't endure a nearly constant assault on their reproductive rights. Men love women, but women couldn’t be trusted with money until 1974 when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act outlawed gender-based discrimination in consumer credit practices. Men love women, but it was legal for a husband to rape his wife until 1976. Men love women, but until 1978 we could refuse to offer them a job on the basis that they can become pregnant. Men love women, but until 1986 we didn’t think that sexual harassment was a form of workplace discrimination. Men love women until it becomes inconvenient or unappealing to us.
As a son, as a brother, as a man who one day hopes to raise daughters, it breaks my heart to live in a world which so openly discriminates against women. Regardless of your political affiliation, seeing the recently released pictures of President Trump signing an executive order regarding women’s health in a room completely vacant of women should be a cause for concern. There’s no doubt that the women’s suffrage movement has made some impressive strides forward, but historically leaps forward are often met with stumbles in the opposite direction. Despite the systematic disadvantages facing women under Trump’s administration, there’s still hope. This hope makes it more important to play an active role in democracy, now more than ever. Reports have emerged claiming that the recent Women’s marches may have made up the largest day of demonstration in American history, and if these passionate men and women continue to demand their voices be heard and their questions answered, change will come.
