The Gender Question - Why feminism is hypocritical these days

Some time back I wrote my first post on feminism. Personally I thought the topic was fairly simple but through the feedback on my post I learnt about the various fractions like feminists, women against feminism and men rights advocates just to name a few. 

This was extremely surprising to me because I think this matter is rather simple: 

Equal rights and duties for both genders!

So why is there such a variety of groups and opinions with this topic? I believe this is because many people use this topic as a valve to vent their frustration because the matter concerns everybody. 

Sadly feminism is always linked to strong negative feelings, even with women. Because some women that call themselves feminists look down on women who decide to become fulltime mothers and wives. In my opinion this is extremely hypocritical because it denies women their freedom.

Originally feminism began to give women equal rights, meaning also the right to choose what to do with their lives. So if a woman is being critized for deliberately choosing to become a homemaker isn't this just as bad as when a woman used to be critized for wanting a career? Just because you can do something, in this case have a career, doesn't mean you have to do it. Otherwise we would only have doctors and lawyers and no gardners or horsetrainers. It is condescending to judge someone by what they decide to be their meaning of life.

A lot of diehard feminists also express a very negative attitude towards men. They literally consider them the enemy and behave as if we were at war. This starts by seeing sexism where there is none and reducing all matters to the gender question. But not everything has to do with the gender question, because after all our gender is just one part of our identity. 

Besides why would we, women, want to subdue men? Do these feminists want revenge for the hundreds of years were men have subdued women? Personally I believe that to be just pityful. I consider myself a modern, strong woman and the last thing in life I want is a docile partner, who always says "what ever you want, darling." Because I am a strong woman I want an equal partner, just like the word says. Otherwise it would say servant or minion. 

I believe that these women, who call themselves feminists, are afraid of accepting men as equal partners. If they let go of their "menhate" and without anyone else to blame they might have to look at themselves to find the reasons why things go wrong. In a way they have still one more step to go which is letting go of the fight and take responsibility for their own situation. This is what makes us mature and strong women, equal to any men. 

Equality also means equal duties. It shudders me, whenever I hear of divorces in which the man looses everything even if the woman cheated on him or what not. I believe that it is time to adjust that as well, so that laws protect both parties equally in a divorce. Also the mother shouldn't automatically get the custody of the children, this should be awarded to the better suited parent, regardless the gender. 

Of course there are many parts in the world, where "the fight" is still on and it is important to fight for equality in those. Therefore I support and applaud campaigns like "he for she" and Emma Watson's inspirational speech in front of the United Nations. 

However in the "western world" it is time we realized what we have reached already. Maybe it is time to give up the priviledges such a women's quota we got in the past, because they are now outdated. Only then will we truly have reached gender equality.