Just to be clear, I am a woman. No male chauvinist here. And I find it terribly hard to advocate for or be proud of my gender at the moment, as feminism seems to be a trend right now.

I feel pretty bad for a lot of hard working men who's achievements get completely ignored or unnoticed due to them being, well, a white male. I know many men who feel like they are seen as naturally bad or wrong just because they are fortunate enough not to have mood swings every month and have the burden of childbirth on their shoulders. Now, I'm totally 100% an equal rights campaigner, really whoever isn't has something wrong with their IQ, but since when has 'equal rights' meant choosing a woman over a man in an interview just to get a 50/50 gender ratio in the workplace 'equal' at all?

I used to be a pretty hardcore feminist. Probably due to my religious schooling ramming male supremacy down my throat since I was like 6 (of whom were all women, not men, degrading themselves). I was all about empowerment for women. But I'm almost going the opposite way now and I'm feeling pretty lousy about being a woman recently, and heres a few reasons why.

(baring in mind this is totally generalising and this is my experience)

1. I hear so many women complain about the fact that they aren't in a higher paid role in comparison to their male colleagues, yet do absolutely nothing about it to get themselves there.

Gals. If you want to get into the male-dominated high-wage jobs then you need to work your asses off just like those men did. You aren't entitled to getting it for any less than a man just because you have a uterus. We are living in an age where it is almost favourable for you to be a woman due to pressure on companies to get the 50/50 ratio.

2. I hear new mothers groan about how they gave up their careers to raise their children and how *he* gets away with it and gets to keep his professional status and yet as soon as you mention they should talk to their partner about sharing the childcare workload they completely reject it and say they do not trust their partner to look after them well.

I know many men who are absolutely brilliant fathers and the idea that men aren't as good as raising kids is nonsense, and very outdated. This mentality is only reinforcing the stereotypes that women have the main role of child raising, and funny how its actually the women who are their worst enemies by not allowing this progress to the 21st century!

3. Women expect other women to choose babies over a career.

This is the one that makes my blood boil. For a start it is not everyones cup of tea to have children, and also a career is also not for everyone. But I have had woman upon woman question my decision to choose the latter and label me as broken because of it. Funnily enough the men mostly completely respect my decision and encourage me to do what I want to do. It seems that even though the western 21st century has tried to educate people away from the "woman are for child-raising" mindset it is actually the women we have to convince of this matter, not the men in a lot of cases.

4. Most of the 'die hard' religious people I know are women

I remember reading a statistical analysis that showed that women were a lot more likely to be religious than men, and less questioning to their beliefs. This just makes me sad. (pretty sure most members on here are men)

Basic summary: Us women don't make it any easier for ourselves!