The twenty first century masculine feminist

Since the beginning of history, men have always been considered the innate leaders of any society. They are considered to be aggressive, dominant, smart for business, and born to be leaders. Conversely, to women who since early history had to break stereotypes to show that they had the potential to work and prove themselves to hold powerful positions at work. Due to the pursuit of women's rights and equality to men, known as feminism, history has changed. Different from decades ago, women are now entitled to choose between working and staying at home, they have more options than just being a wife and a mom. While, women now have rights, they still carry different stereotypes that sometimes prevent them to be respected and considered for a better position at the workplace. Stereotypes of women such as sensitive, unstable, deep emotional are some of the reasons why women are not considered potential leaders. That is why, as Ariel Levy discusses in her essay “Female Chauvanist Pigs” “Women who've wanted to be perceived as powerful have long found it more effective to identify with men than to try and elevate the entire female sex to their level” (268). Instead of fulfilling the designated stereotypes, women are showing that they can have a masculine side too. In order to be considered as powerful leaders in a male dominated society, most women try to identify with men by acquiring masculine characteristics.

Although, the successful leadership style is masculine, women struggle to decide which type of style they need to adopt in order to be respected by their peers. For instance, Asiedu in her essay “Masculine Women, Feminist Men: Assertions and Contradictions in Mawugbe's In the Chest of a Woman” examined the August 2007 production o...

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...ould be confident of his or her decisions and he or she should not be afraid of being aggressive when the situation demands it. Yes, most of this characteristics where mainly believed to be just for man. However, time has changed, feminists have evolved from the household women who depended on their husbands. Women are not afraid to fulfill masculine roles. The twenty first century feminist is not a woman who wants equality between genders by being called passive or supportive. The new feminism is represented by a masculine feminist who embraces her femininity and is not afraid of being aggressive, assertive, independent, and competitive. In a male dominated world, being a masculine feminist has been the only alternative to be considered a leader and even though most societies have been based in patriarchal backgrounds, leadership is not a role only for men anymore.