Equity, not equality
Today is March 8 - International Women’s Day. It’s a day on which I am extremely reluctant to open my messenger and social media apps. The glorifying and deifying of women is ad nauseam! Women are labeled as the the epitome of grace, beauty, sensibility… (I have forgotten the other adjectives as I have stopped reading these things for a while now.) The contradiction that is a woman has created a whole industry of poets, writers, illustrators. The one that really gets my goat is something saying “... do not treat me as a daughter, a wife or a mother. Just treat me as a woman…” And the same women who send this message on Women’s Day are the ones sending the message “...Mothers are special because they are (please fill in your superlatives) …” on Mother’s Day!I am a woman and yet I do not feel special. I do not feel I am the best thing God has created. When I was younger I did feel it was unfair that girls were expected to dress, behave and do things a certain way whereas boys seemed to get a lot more freedom. I was annoyed by nature’s decision of making women the childbearers, a decision that entailed pain and a weird sense of shame a few days every month. Later, there was even in a time in my life when I did believe I was special because I was a woman. I thought I had the special skill set of sensitivity and empathy due to my gender. And I had the ultimate power - I could create life! (When my children were born I felt a sense of wonder and joy but by no means I felt powerful or special.)
Looking back, I feel that was a way to compensate for all limitations that society had placed on me. And I believe International Women’s Day is just that - an overcompensation for all the injustice and bias society has held against women for generations.
I do not believe men and women are equal. I strongly believe they are very, very different from each other and it’s not at all a bad thing. Just as each gender has a role to perform in the evolution and success of a species, it has a role in the evolution and progress of a society. There is no denying women have been treated unfairly for the longest portion of human history. Even in today’s day and age, women do not have it easy in most walks of life. There is an obvious bias against women, especially in traditionally male dominated fields. (I believe we do not have sufficient data to show how men are treated in a traditionally female dominated field. I have a feeling, it won’t be very different.) But deifying them or branding them the superior gender is the wrong way to go about it. Why can’t us women be just people, without any labeling? Why do we feel compelled to fight all the perceptions associated with us? Why do we need to emphasize on how awesome we are just because we happen to be women? Why do we insist on proving we can do anything and everything that ‘men’ can? And why, oh why, do we have to be superior to men? If a woman does not need a man to complete her, why should hero have to be 0 without her? The real women with real gender based problems are not receiving any real benefits from the ‘celebration’ of Women’s Day. What we are doing by this ostentatious and rather hollow celebration of womanhood is diluting the gender issues that continue to plague our society. It is time ‘feminism’ takes a long, hard look at what it truly means and what it has become.
Ultimately it is important for us, as women, nay, people, to embrace just who we are with our strengths and limitations, both real and perceived, and fight our fight quietly and with dignity.
PS: When my 6 year old asked me what I was writing about, I said “Today is International Women’s Day and I am writing about it”. His next and rather obvious question was “When is International Men’s Day?” He was disappointed to know there isn’t one to celebrate his ‘manhood’. I see this a great opportunity to open talks about gender equity, not equality.
posted by Ila @ 2:25 PM
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