6 November 2011

Men and women are different but should be treated equally! By Sybil



There is one only certainty: men and women think and behave differently. Men are more aggressive and often stronger, while women are calmer and more pondered.

But this doesn’t mean they are not equal! No one can deny that women have been considered as inferior to men for a very long time and in most societies. Things only began to change recently. For example, the right to vote was granted to women for the first time in the USA in 1869, but only in 1979 did the Council of Europe adopt a declaration on gender equality.

Justice is now the same for men and women in most Western countries. Many laws have been voted during the past fifty years to allow total equality.

In politics, there now are countries directed by women, and not only in developed areas, like Germany, but also in developing countries such as Chile. Women are present in several Governments and laws have been created to force these Governments to comply with gender equality regulations for elections.

Women are present at all power levels; for example there are more and more senior female managers in Industry. It is no longer a problem for women to own goods or manage their own businesses alone.

Education isn’t reserved, as it was before, exclusively for men, and in fact statistics show that there are more women succeeding in their studies than men!

Real equality between husbands and wives exists. Laws have accorded men more rights and obligations as regards child care, for example, so as to encourage them to help women in this role. Couples can now choose which one will work, and earn money for the family, while the other stays home...

But, are laws really applied equally? Moreover, there are still too many countries in the world denying their rights to women!

The number of countries directed by women is only six out of more than two hundred countries in the world. In developed countries as well as in developing countries, women are paid less than men for the same type of work; on average, a woman will earn only 80% of a mans pay. Women also work longer than men, and the rate of unemployment is higher for women than for men. Laws in some countries still make it difficult for a woman to do certain things without her husband, for example: get a place to live, or even acquire a vehicle. Even a woman simply living on her own is deemed unacceptable in some parts of the world...

In fact, women often cannot find work, because managers consider it a problem to employ women as they may have children and are therefore more likely to be absent from work... Women often have to abandon the idea of a family life if they hope to pursue a career.

There is a majority of men in charge with power, which makes it even more difficult to introduce decisions in favour of gender equality, as the decisions taken reflect mostly men’s will.

In the Bible as well as the Koran it is said in different ways that women are inferior to men. In some countries, women are placed under the authority of men and are forced, supposedly because of religion, to hide their faces, which is, in my opinion, a violation of their human rights. Access to education is still refused to girls in some countries.

The number of sexual harassment suits has increased over the past ten years, and, in some countries, if women can’t prove they were raped, they are accused of adultery.

The image of women is often used in degrading ways, in advertising for example.

I think women generally have a less violent attitude than men and try, most of the time, to avoid conflicts. They are therefore often considered "weaker" than men, thus justifying patriarchal societies. To reach gender equality, will women have to resort to violence too? Does equality mean women becoming more like men, or the opposite?

The continuing problem of gender equality is no longer a legal one in developed countries, but a problem of mentality. Women have greater difficulties finding work, they are under-represented in scientific research, only 33% of doctors are women, and it is very difficult for them to impose themselves in areas deemed worthy of men only, in business for example (this is certainly due to the sexist attitude of most of the male entrepreneurs of leading companies).

To achieve true gender equality, people's mentality, as reflected in advertising for example, must evolve. We must question education, and the values that are taught to our children!

Gender equality is badly named, because "equal" in this context doesnt mean "the same"... Men and women are different in their behaviour and attitudes. That is why establishing true equality between genders is so complicated. Even if mentalities are evolving a little, men will never become pregnant, and the 15% of women in the armed forces will certainly not increase significantly. Neither will ever change how they are; what we should try to determine is how to treat people equally, whatever their gender, in a non-macho society. If our world is to become fairer, women need simply to be respected as much as men.


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