John Gray once wrote a book called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus explaining that men and women are completely different. After this book was published Kimmel went on to discuss against Grays thoughts and argued that men and women are very much alike. I’ve always thought that men and women are no different but Kimmel makes some great points on how gender similarities have evolved over the decades.
Kimmel goes on to discuss four ways how women lives have changed over 40 years. He first stated that women made gender visible; that gender is one of the organizing principles of social lives. Kimmel has a great point here since there never use to be courses on gender and look at us today there are majors devoted to women studies.
Kimmel’s second point that he mentions is that woman’s experiences of expectations around the labor force have changed fundamentally in three generations. Although men expectations have not changed one bit, women and men are now at the same level of expectations. It’s very clear that both men and women want to go on having a successful career. I know that my girl friends and I have just as much as a motive to succeed as our guy friends.
Kimmel’s third point he mentions is that women use to have to choose between either a career or children. Men use to be the provider to the family while women stayed at home. Now-a-days women balance out their work and child caring. Some women are still stay at home moms, but today it is much more likely that you find men that are stay at home dads while the women is the family’s main income.
Lastly Kimmel goes on to explain that a woman’s sexuality has evolved over the decades. It use to be all about men who were into sex and were the only ones that wanted to pleasure. Today women feel entitled to pleasure and sex no longer revolves around men. It’s great to see that women lives have changed positively in the last decades. Women deserve to be treated just as equally and men and women are no different than one another.
Although women have made gender visible, very few men see it as an issue that affects them directly. This is a great challenge and will require a lot of work to change. Men need women's studies and the unique information it offers and yet there are still very few who sign up for the classes.
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