How
to Create Gender Equality
I think this desperate need within society is
not easy at all to bring into being – to put it mildly. However, as it’s been
in the news again just lately, I would like to have a go at how I believe it
can be done. We have particularly noted
the wages problem in the BBC. And, make no mistake, we are told it’s much worse
throughout the rest of the country. If one
happens to have been born female, then those persons will receive around 17%
less than their male counterpart, even though they may be doing exactly the
same job in the same office.
Why is it not so easy to change this and
bring in a satisfactory sense of equality? Because we have to change a deep set
culture, or even lots of different sub-cultures, and much of the thinking that
has formed that culture goes back a long way, ingraining itself into people’s
thinking over many generations?
What is that ingrained thinking? At a basic
level it really is a fact that Males are in charge. Because they are more
intelligent? Stronger? Could it be that they are better? Females are, of course, lesser because they
are not so clever or as strong, and therefore men need to be in charge. (That
is a comment of sarcasm – please don’t write in to complain.)
What we tend to do is address symptoms of
this disease. This means that we are wanting to increase women’s wages and make
it, “equal jobs for equal pay” right across the board. The trouble is that such an action, once
taken, still will not have addressed the thinking, just the symptoms that came
into being because of that thinking.
Legislation would change things, though that
would be somewhat of a blunt instrument. We know that laws can change wrong to
right (and sometimes even change right to wrong), so we must not underestimate
the power of a passed law by government.
However, I do think we need to address the
issue of equality at its base. The foundational base is how people think. The way that people
think has been formed by their family, the government, the educational system,
the community that they mix with, the business pressures that they have been
exposed to, the history that brought the issue into being, and even the
language.
So it’s about changing people’s thinking. Changing
the thinking that says men are superior, woman are inferior. That means influencing, educating,
legislating and seeking to change the cultural mind-set that makes the
acceptance of the statement above acceptable.
I listened recently to young lads, of non
UK origin being interviewed on TV about what they thought about the so called “honour
killings”. Their answers were horrific. They said things like, “If my sister
had dishonoured my family, then, yes, I think she should be killed”. The whole idea that women are lesser, builds
the strong presupposition that their freedoms of expression, their friends, their
choice of dress, and all of their relationships must of necessity be controlled
by men.
Sumptuary legislation, where ever it comes
from, is always about power and domination.
I hear comments like, “… but that woman chose to dress like this!” My question is one step further back. “Who
pressurises them to choose, or to exercise their supposed freedom in that way?” The probable answer is their religion, the
law, their culture, and all those facets of life that are their personally accepted
conventions. Then we need to ask, “Why is
it so?” The answer will be, “Because men dictate it”. (http://adrianhawkes.co.uk/sumptuary-legislation-2/)
We can achieve equality, but we need to
deal with the symptoms, i.e. equal pay and opportunities and the like, but we
also need to address the underlying cultural perception. We will need to do
that by education, legislation and a strong argument against our historical
position. In other words; a full scale attack on the current cultural position
and underlying thinking.
Adrian Hawkes
Adrianhawkes.blogspot.co.uk
Edited KL
w. 551
