I think even now I still hear people (men mostly) ask half-jokingly that why there is an International Women Day but no International Men Day. I, totally not jokingly, would say that it is because all the other 364 days are already Men Days. This perfectly illustrates the saying: when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

I can go on an on and on on how women are far from getting equal treatment to men in almost everything. It could fill up 3 tomes of book, really. The inequality is overwhelmingly everywhere that you can just look around and immediately find it. I feel tired to see that the March 8, in Vietnam at least, is still considered a day for men to buy women some flowers, or a meal, or a present, to celebrate “the women of their life”, totally ignorant of all the problems that women still face.

Few days ago, I saw “Mary, Queen of Scots” and I like it, mostly because it shows how even strong, smart women who are queens are still looked down by men as a child, a sex servant or a child bearing machine. The two women in the movie, the two queens, were incredible, given their circumstance. More than that, the movie also shows men characters in situation that usually is reserved for women. The queens’ husband and lover’s only purpose is to fulfill their women needs as emotional healer, sex servant or child making machine. And they are ordered around, and they are forced to marry women they barely know as if they are just a property of their father. It reminds me of the character played by Chris Hemsworth in Ghost Busters, a dumb pretty blond male character who only exists in the movie to be objectified and rescued by the female leads. It must makes a lot of men uncomfortable seeing that. But guess what, that what female characters have been from the beginning of cinema, only exist in relation to male characters and can’t do anything without men’s helps.

Even when women are not secondary characters in movies, they are out-represented by men. How many women there are in the Avengers? One, Black Widow. How many girls there are in the group of friends in Stranger Things? One. A team in movie usually consists of: a male lead, a nerd, a shy boy, a joker and a girl. The girl doesn’t need any specific characteristic because she is just that, a girl. And this is just the representation. If we talk about content, there is a fun test call Bechdel that will test if a movie is acceptable enough for women. The movie needs to:

1. Have at least 2 female characters.
2. These 2 characters talk to each other.
3. They talk about something that not related to any men.

You would be surprised by how few movies pass this test. Yes, in movie, men can talk together about saving the world, about life philosophy, about how to invent new technology… but women, there is only one in the movie, or there are two but they never talk to each other, or they talk to each other, but about men. Men is the center of universe. And somehow they still feel the need to ask for a Men Day just because women have one Women Day.