Gender equality is a necessary goal for all civilisations.
…It should be.
Growing up, I always heard this statement, “What a man can do, a woman can do better”
Back then, it sounded very savvy and progressive but looking back, I think that infamy mocks itself. It is untrue. It is a comforting lie and more than anything, it is such lies that have eroded the spirit of a beautiful culture and a destroyed the strength of our girls and our women.
It is as much a false statement as claiming, what a woman can do a man can do better.
It’s simply not true.
The moment we started treating the matter of gender equality like a competition, we lost the plot. The longer that competitive attitude persists, the goal for equality for the sexes will continue to be elusive.
Nature gave each of us, even men in their individuality, very unique and special functions. There are some things you can never do as well as the next man. And conversely, there are things that the other guy will never match your skill on. And this transcends our gendered conclaves. What men are born to do, for instance, protect, provide, women can do but whether you accept it or not, while they can do it, they do it with greater strain alone and most not as well. And to put the point in perspective, what women are created to do, say, nurture or heal, men cannot do nearly half as well on a good day.
Those people who insist that we can all and should do the same thing to be equal are destroying our abilities to execute what we were created to do. The only way to achieve gender equality is by giving each gender the time, space and opportunity to do what they do best, best. What women can do is indispensable to men and vice versa. If we can perfect our natural roles, we show each other exactly how useful we are to one another but more importantly how useless we are without each other. And that is the true idea of equality.
So, when you tell girls, act tough when you go for that interview if you want to be taken seriously, you’re destroying what’s beautiful and unique about her, gentleness perhaps. You’re robbing the job of her unique qualities. And when we get in the habit of changing who we truly are for benefits and the like, we deny society what we offer in our true character, we destroy society. Aping roles and imitating qualities does not foster gender equality, it fosters competition in one gender and rips talent from the other. We can’t kill the idea of a woman hoping to make her stronger neither can we weaken the nature of a man hoping to make him loving.
Where strength fails we can find strength and where love lacks we can create love. We can be truly equal without necessarily being similar.
I think, maybe for too long we’ve been trying to stand face to face instead of working to stand shoulder to shoulder. Again, gender equality shouldn’t be a competition. It ought to be completion in a sense.
So, I want to believe that women should be taught to be women and men, men. Then in that way we remind each other we were created truly equal and we cannot live any lesser.
THE GENDER GENERATION.
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