Why Feminists Hate the Cartesian Split

In gender studies this previous semester I got the purely biased view of my professor who is obviously herself a feminist as well on why women today are persecuted by the patriarchal society we live in. As you can imagine some days it ground on me but the longer I sat in class the more sense it began to make. The primary problem feminists have with cartesian thought is because of its strong emphasis on pure logic as the gateway to everything worth understanding. To understand why feminists dislike this however observe that in the traditional nuclear family women were responsible for child rearing and men were the "bread winners" of the family and the split between what you know and what you feel is ingrained in our societies idea of what it means to be a woman compared to what it means to be man. The sterotypical vision of what it means to be a man and woman was perfectly shown on "I Love Lucy" you have Lucy the flighty and romantic housewife and her husband Ricky the calm and logical "rock" who keeps her grounded in reality. To show a stark example of this anyone who has ever seen a grown man crying in public will probably say that it was at least a little uncomftorable but if we see a woman in public crying does anyone give it a second thought? The double standard continues in the number of women we see in leadership positions of fortune 500 companies and vice versa how many men we see who are cosmetologists. What these double standards really hint at is that because we are living in a patriarchal society all that is deemed masculine is valued and all that is feminine is persecuted examples include toleration of masculine women (Tom boys) but not so much the feminine man. The true political implications of this system however is that it dichotomizes all people on the basis of wether you are feminine or masculine when in reality both men and women share many characteristics in varying degrees. Instead of dichotomizing people this way Feminisism would prefer people to view others on a continum that allows for people to not be excluded from society because they don't fit neatly into the extreme masculine or the extreme femininity that genders are classicly lumped into. The results of this way of thinking are shocking to some. Imagine if you will the plight of a battered man today most would criticize him for being hurt by a woman and claim he should "toughen up" but in reality he may be in a situation that he needs outside assistance in, who does he go to for help? The pitfall of this thinking is that feminists traditionally argue for equitable treatment, not equal treatment, and this is divisive to both the feminism movement as well as outside voters who may consider legislation in support of their interests if it treated men and women equally.