Recently I read a comment in a post:
“Women want to be treated the same as men except when they want to be treated differently.”
Then I did a double take – the comment was written by a woman and had over 10,000 Likes. Wow!
I couldn’t help but wonder what experiences 10,000 people had to make them all find more than a grain of truth in that statement. Do women really want to pick and choose when they want to be treated as equal to men?
I will admit I’ve known some women like that.
Gender equality means men and women have equal value and equal treatment. So to understand the comment, I Googled gender inequality issues, reasons, causes, etc. Most of the articles discussed income inequality and the wage gap. There were also a lot of general discussions about glass ceilings and gender biases. The articles all came from the perspective of how society is constructed to hold women back or make it difficult for women to have economic parity with men.
However the comment and the experiences of 10,000 people say that it isn’t just society holding women back. Women aren’t doing all they can to advance themselves either.
After many hours of searching I still couldn’t find any articles that discussed why women pick and choose their moments of equality. Then buried in one article I found the term “diminished responsibilities.” The example it cited was men dismissing a woman who wanted to help unload a truck. “Don’t worry sweetheart, we got this. You go on back to the office.”
According to the article if she wants to unload the truck then the men should let her. That sounds good. That sounds like equality.
But wait!
What about the other 2 women who work in the office?
Shouldn’t they be out helping to unload the truck too? Isn’t that equality? Or do they get to decide that unloading the truck is man’s work so this is one of those situations they don’t want to be treated as equals?
In the past we’ve excused women from this type of work because it was physical. However, current workplace safety rules have pretty much negated this excuse. Equipment must be used to lift heavy objects, even by men who are strong enough to lift the object without equipment. So there is no reason why women can’t help unload the truck.
Today there is no reason why women can’t do the overwhelming vast majority of things once considered a man’s job, even physical work.
So I see diminished responsibilities expanded with four applications:
- It is men saying women can’t do something because it is a man’s job
- It is women excusing themselves from doing something because it is a man’s job
(We can all come up with examples to fit these applications.)
- It is women saying men can’t do something because it is a woman’s job.
(Sorry, I am having a hard time coming up with an example of this except for giving birth, breast feeding and helicopter mothers who never cut the apron strings to their sons. I can think of a lot of things we let men do but then aren’t satisfied with the results. So, if you have an example, leave a comment.)
- It is men excusing themselves from something because it is a woman’s job
(We can come up with a long list of examples but they are all considered politically incorrect.)
If women will stop themselves from doing a man’s job but won’t stop a man from doing a woman’s job, we can conclude that women pick and choose when we want to be equals.
That makes women sound like hypocrites.
If we are going to have true equality then we need to eliminate all four applications of diminished responsibilities. We need to set a new standard where we see most jobs, tasks, responsibilities and accountabilities in terms of being an adult, not in terms of being a man or a woman.
Actually this isn’t even an equality issue – it is just a fact of modern life. Today, there are a lot of single people in all age groups who have to carry life’s responsibilities solo. Men have to cook, clean the bathroom and do laundry. Women have to take care of their cars, earn a living and manage their finances. This is just the way it is.
And yet, we are still using a mid-20th century perspective of inequality. Too often we are solely focused on others oppressing or discriminating against women.
We ignore that many women are still sitting back, letting men take the lead and in a secondary role by their own choosing. Our society still allows women to choose #2 – to see tasks and jobs as men’s jobs and opt out.
Even though this still perpetuates the idea that women are weaker or inferior to men, we don’t call this politically incorrect, discrimination or inequality. But it is self-inflicted discrimination.
As women we have to look in the mirror and see if we are choosing to hold ourselves back – if we only want to assume the perks of equality and not the less pleasant responsibilities and accountabilities that come with it.
As a society we have to apply equality evenly – between men and women and amongst women. This means we see men and women as adults who share a common list of responsibilities and accountabilities and have an equal expectation of living up to them. If we don’t then we all wind up confused and with 10,000 people liking the comment above. And that’s not good for anyone.
Empowered Women Don’t Self-Discriminate
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