An unequal equality

 

Nabanita’s  post on the blatant misogyny in the US election campaign had me thinking about gender discrimination. Sadly, men and women are not the same . This is physically very obvious. No matter how much we may deny it, men have more physical strength than women.

[Tweet “But a person’s intellect, ability and efficiency is NOT gender specific”].

Time and again women have proved their merit in all fields once exclusive to men. At times they have even excelled .

However, inspite of all the struggles for women’s equality, we remain unequally equal.

An unequal battle

Women the world over have faced discrimination when it comes to equality in ownership, inheritance, governance,  responsibility , rights and duties. For centuries they have been kept cosetted and closeted, as beings who worked behind the scenes.

Considered weaker, they were still made to work because ultimately they had to share the burden and pull their weight. Thus they helped in the fields and worked in the home but were denied the right to think for themselves.

After years of struggle, both latent and obvious, women finally won their freedom to march alongside a man. They could go to school, earn college degrees, drive cars, run corporations and eventually choose to live their lives the way they wanted.

But is a woman really equal?

I doubt it .

Some things have not fundamentally changed. No matter what, a woman is expected to be the one to cook and clean. She may earn the big bucks and command armies but when it comes to her home, she is expected to run it . Even in the most progressive households, daddy can baby sit while on his mobile phone but mummy definitely can’t. Daddy may make a meal but that I should just when mummy just can’t .

And the list goes on and on.

Sadly, women have won the right to work and be themselves but the men haven’t had to change anything. They continue to behave the way they always have.

And in this respect the equality that women have got for themselves is heavily stacked against them. They have to work harder and longer , leap higher, almost kill themselves to “prove” they are more deserving than the man who pips them to the post.

Do men and women share the responsibility of the most basic of all tasks – raising a family – in equal measure? Are the tasks equally divided? In most households it isn’t so.

Society dictates that a woman may do a man’s job, but she has to do a woman’s job too!

Women have modified theie attitudes and behaviour to let us work alongside but have we made men change anything in theirs?

We may wear trousers but do men wear skirts? 

Linking this with #MondayMusings, a blog hop hosted by Corinne on Everyday Gyaan.