In a society where most of the credit goes to the male's role, the motive of a successful career and financial
independency pushes everybody out there to a work that gets quick results and valid
acknowledgment. Actually, the whole economic system encourages and incites
people, equally men and women, towards this achievement, and this is not necessarily a bad thing, but
here is the deal:
Women are fighting tirelessly to accomplish the same
as men in order to be equal; however, this is far from being balanced and fair. Women
want to go out there too, get an equal rewarding job and an equal respectable
responsibility. But unless men do the same; demand an equal share of an
unpaid job (housekeeping and childcare) and an equal ability to give birth,
that equality bullshit is just another form of an awful disparity. How come a
woman protest to have the man’s job and duty while vice versa is
nowhere to be found. The answer is simple: if the physically powerful creature
does a certain job, the others will automatically assume that this job is the
incarnation and reflection of power and influence, thus everyone would want to
do the same.
The problem here; once a woman pursues a man’s role,
she systematically rejects her own; she makes it frivolous and worthless. I’m
not saying that housekeeping is important, hell no, both parts should share that
pain in the ass. I’m talking about the role as a mother. The honest equation is
simple: you just can’t put two different and kind of contradictory things as
equal priorities (a career and motherhood) not is it just hard and would
require a tremendous effort and sacrifice of the woman’s well being, but it’s
practically impossible to juggle both tasks at the same level of height. Nevertheless, a working mother who is
assuming both female and male roles is just insanely a superhero.
The actual system gives women the same rights to
education and same fresh start to a career marathon. However, the race is
simply unfair if the route of women is full of roadblocks and hindrances while
the men’s is a plain smooth field. What worst is that women’s obstructions are
not only social, but biological as well, and most women can’t escape that heavy
burden of pregnancy, delivery, nursing and having a little monster sucking their blood and depending totally and solely on them, especially during the first
years. If we can’t alter men’s biology, how are we expecting equality! In a
time where physical strength is no longer required for survival, I, in the
contrary, expect that it's men who should ask for equality. Women are taking way
too much responsibility and hardship.
The aftermath of this imbalance, plus the super
exhaustion of working mothers, is that a powerful and critical role has been
thrown in the dumpster: Childcare. A worthy job, unfortunately
underestimated, that enables societies, if done well, to benefit from a well
educated and mannered generation. ‘Studies have been done to get an annual
salary estimate for a female caregiver. One survey suggested that the value of
a mother's work, if she were paid the average wage for each task she performs
in running the household and caring for her children, is $117,867 per year’. Now
most of the value here is related to childcare rather than housekeeping. That
is not to mention the benefit and positive impact on the whole family.
Furthermore, Today’s perception on equality seems to
emerge another sort of oppression and pressure: women should deny and neglect
the specificities of their biology and character, and adopt masculine traits. In
fact, equality in opportunities is expected to result in equality of outcome.
This parity of outcome, if strongly desired, will therefore form tension and
weight on women; they are expected to do it all, or give up their inherited
tendencies to occupy the same positions as their male peers, whereas men are
not forced to do the same. The idea of a staying at home father or sharing
equitably housekeeping is virtually ill-perceived. So how come we’re talking
about equality whilst it’s actually a brand new form of injustice? And why are
we so eager to implement the equality of outcome and reverse (from just one
side) the roles?
In regions like Scandinavia, where a pure
egalitarian policy in opportunities is adopted; women are simply opting for
jobs that require a feminine competence like nursing, while men are occupying a
more masculine positions like engineering. These results were both striking and kind of disappointing. Now if the society wants an equal
outcome where men and women occupy a certain job with a ratio of 50%, that
would ironically require less freedom and redirection of choices. But why would
anyone go through this endeavor? To what purpose?
Women are compelled to assume some positions which
they are biologically and psychologically not adequate with, while the other way
around is not encouraged. This only manifests and supports the
jungle law where the tasks of the physically strong creature are the mostly
valued and appreciated. That is not to say that women can’t become CEO or
political leaders, hell sure they can and they should. However, enforcing extremities is a pure
disrespect to each gender’s natural inclinations.
We should aim for Equity and not equality, and for that, a society must take some few aspects
into consideration:
1- Childcare and
parenting should be rewarded and supported by the system, it is only senseless that an institution; which is responsible for building generations that will
lead the country and keep it functional, is poorly perceived and considered trivial. That job should be promoted, encouraged, correctly instructed, and
exploited. Neglecting it is precisely the root of most problems.
2- The system needs
to adapt to the working-mother’s situation, they should not be expected to work
as they don’t have a holly mess and a number of little intruders at their homes.
Options should be available to make it easier for mothers to both fulfill their
roles in the family and simultaneously pursuing their careers (like working
from home, adjusting the number of working hours, extending the maternity leave for at least two years, diversify convenient and suitable job offers... )
3- Perceptions and
mindset must evolve; the pressure needs to cease on how women should be perfect
accomplishing everything, on how she must go out there to work her ass off otherwise
she is unproductive and worthless, or on how she must take in charge the entire
household or else she is useless…
That is the real equality;
the freedom of choice without judgments or expectations, the respect of every
gender’s inherent particularity without forcing a certain ideology, the
recognition of each role equally meaningful and crucial, and the acceptance and
embracement of dissimilarities instead of vacuuming them.
Great Article!!
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