For millennia, it is the men who have ruled the roost. War, power and peace have all been dictated by the decisions made by one group. However, some notable exceptions in other species in nature are found where the roles are reveresed. For example, the praying mantis sacrifices his life in order to procreate whenever he encounters a female who gladly and happily eats her husband’s head, male black widow spiders often become a romantic snack after approaching the female, and the male honeybee can only meet his queen once and instantly dies after the queen feels he’s no longer needed.

From all this dichotomy between the gender stereotypes in nature, one begs to wonder, why are men ruling the world? And can all the gender studies departments and modern liberal rhetoric throughout the world truly play a significant role in demolishing the patriarchy?

It’s a men’s world after all

No question that if you judge our society based on the sheer ability to inflict savagery, something that was quite common just before the modern thought of civility arose, men will be the ones who are naturally regarded as the apex of our species. They have more muscles, they are stronger, and in a society that evaluated brute force rather than intellect, it was, and it certainly should have been, a men’s world.

It seems, however, that we have changed our own perception amongst ourselves. We, unlike the praying mantis or the black widow, are no longer savages. So-called societies are now claiming to be based on intellectual principles and enlightened thought regarding equality and inclusivity.

If one was to believe such a claim and one believes in the equal abilities shared among men and women, he or she should realise that this so-called society built on intellect is nothing but a facade; otherwise, why on earth would men still rule, war still continue and the problems of the savagery days still persist?

The burden of power

Men are stressed, no doubt about it. When looking at surveys and various data based on mental health, it is evident that men have replaced teenage girls in terms of having anxiety and a stressful life. Historians might attribute it to the loads they have been carrying for millennia; however, one other theory is that men are complaining about the stress, which is encouraging a stress-fuelled empathy-welcoming endeavour, lack of which begets further stress.

That is why some are questioning where the real men are. Questions that are often raised by eligible female bachelorettes. Thousands of years of patriarchy have embedded an inherent expectation that men know they have, and women know that men are obliged to meet it.

However, the modern man now has a way out. The excessive empathy tracker can now alleviate some of his expectations. As capitalism brought women into the workforce just as feudalism made them stay in the kitchen in the past, but this time, both men and women are expected to carry their own weight.

This, in turn, left men without any privileges. They are not the masters of their house anymore because sometimes they earn less, and without being told as such, they feel subservient to their significant other. And sometimes their significant other also has expectations of her men: to be a real man, to be the shining beacon of patriarchy she witnessed in the days of her father and mother, where her mother worked while her father bore the ‘real’ responsibility.

Such dichotomic expectation of liberalism meeting old-war sexism has made men and women more confused about their roles in society, and men are not taking it well. The average simp hopes never to leave his mother and longs for her authority in his girlfriend or wife, whilst his wife, being happy with the independence she now enjoys, longs for the days where she saw men being truly men and taking on the burden of life rather than becoming a lackey just passing through his mediocre life.

Such is the state of modern men: too afraid to be manly, too comfortable avoiding any sort of responsibility, and too quick to pass on authority. Modernity has made him soft, and the excessive pandering of his half-wetted effort has made his condition worse. Still, his patriarchy persists, this time the foundation being reinforced by the powerful women who are emerging, while real men still pull the strings as they are too few in number but are still equipped with the demagogic sexist vision of superiority.