Artwork by Roya Saberzada
If respecting women, demanding equality, not harassing women in public spaces, defending women’s human rights and protesting discrimination and violence against girls and women makes men “weak” and “girly,” I am very proud to say my father, brothers and friends are “girly” and “weak.”
Good men are for women’s empowerment.
I am lucky to have had men in my family who had supported me. These men have defended gender equality, participated in protests and written about women’s rights despite knowing that their actions might be mocked. These men have defended women’s rights to education, employment, independence, choosing their partners and other human rights because they believe that fighting for progress and equality is their human duty. However another reason these women have spoken up in the movement for gender equality is that they are confident. They know that women’s empowerment will not lead them to losing their rights. They know that my education does not take away from them the chance to get educated. My literacy does not lead to their illiteracy. They know that my increased empowerment and equality will not lead to them losing the power and societal standing that is rightfully there.
In an equal world we all receive what is ours, not more and not less. Men who fight against equality lack confidence and suffer from an inferiority complex. They also know that if women are given equal rights, they will have to return to women what belongs to them. In an equal world men will not be able to make decision about women’s lives, education, work, clothing, behavior, bodies or marriage. In an equal world men do not have the right to buy women under the facade of marriage or beat or harass them. In an equal world, men cannot prevent women from going to schools or working outside the home. For men who believe that they are entitled to more rights than women or who secretly, and rightly so, believe that the do not deserve all the extra opportunities they have been given, imaging this equal world is terrifying. In contrast, men who do not think themselves superior and know that they will succeed in life without forcefully and unfairly taking the space and rights of women, welcome the idea of building a more equal world. Men who believe in themselves do not become obstacles for women’s progress. Only men who lack in confidence and conscience are afraid of women’s rights.
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Read this piece in Persian here.