I want to say I am by no means a feminist. When I think of the word: Feminist I automatically think of women half naked screaming about THEIR rights. How, they can be naked and should be treated equally. Or I think women sharing grotesque pictures of their blood stained underwear and saying this is 'normal'.
However, this post isn't just about women this is about everyone. I don't care if you're a man, if you're a women or if you are gender neutral what has struck me recently, is simply, the disparity in how we are all viewed.
I work in the financial services industry and I have done so for over 13 years. As a junior entry into the industry, I worked in a bank as a banking cashier surrounded by women. As I've established my career over the years and naturally progressed 'up the chain', I've noticed how the genders have changed. My colleagues are predominately male. I have no issue with this at all. But what struck me is not just my colleagues but now I've noticed the difference in my clients.
As a regulatory consultant, I go into very large businesses to help them with their regulatory requirements. Over the past two weeks, I've had been to two separate client meetings. Both meetings the attendees were myself and five gentlemen. The only exception to this gender equation, was when the (female) receptionist bought our beverages in.
This got me thinking into other professions and what the gender split looks like. Look at the health and beauty industry, beauty therapist, hairdressers, masseuse... these roles are predominately performed by women. Then you look at the likes of bricklayers, electricians and mechanics, these generally performed by men.
It got me thinking as to why this is? Yes you could say that men are 'strong' and they are build for manual jobs and perhaps women are better suited doing 'caring' jobs such as nursery assistants and nurses. However, I wonder whether we stick to these types of jobs through fear of what other people may think. Or perhaps through fear of failure.
From a young age men are conditioned to be 'strong' and 'not cry like a little girl'. I believe that statement is one of the reasons as to why the suicide rate for men is 75% compared to 25% in women. That statement tells men not to show their emotions and you know what, I call bullshit on that.
You all know my views on suicide so I won't labour this point but that was an example of how from a young age we are being socially conditioned.
I love seeing the 'gender specific model' being broken. For example, my boyfriend has two beautiful daughter's and one of their favourite colours is Green. I don't know many 8 year old girls who's favourite colour is green - this rocks.
This whole gender equality thing has got me thinking about how we help create equality overall. There will be some women out there who will hate me for saying this, but it feels like so much of this striving for gender equality is bias towards women.
You see it all, women's networking events, women only gyms and mother and baby groups. What about the other way round? Yes, there are private establishments for men however all these 'women's only' things are seeping into every day life.
I remember at my induction for my previous job, the (male) Chief Executive Officer explained that if two people went for a job on the Board of his company, and they both had the exact same skills, then he would choose the women over the male for the role. How is that possibly fair? Granted it would be a tough decision to make if they genuinely both had the same skill set but I see that as positive discrimination.
This brings me on to the whole 'pay gap' and how men are paid more than women. I do not believe everyone should be paid exactly the same for doing the 'same' job. The only exception to this statement is if the job is extremely static in the sense of two people (regardless of gender) will perform the exact same tasks each day. An example of this may be a factory worker on a production line.
Take myself for example, my job title is an Associate. In my firm, there are probably ten Associates and I bet your bottom dollar we are all on different salaries, regardless of gender. The reasons for this will be some people have a university degree, others have more work experiences, others may even have, quite simply, a better attitude towards work and the biggest thing will be how hard did we all 'fight' (so to speak) at negotiating our initial salaries and subsequent pay rises.
I don't want to make this too much about the workplace because it's not. This is more about equality all together. Something I noticed on the train yesterday, a dad was sat down with his daughter who must have been about one years old. There was a man stood in front of him, talking to the little girl. I knew just by looking at the dad's body language that this man was not known to him. The man was simply cooing over the little girl and making general chit chat. Now, had that stranger been a women cooing over the little girl there is no doubt the dad would have felt far more at ease. Another classic example of gender disparities.
What I'm saying in this post is nothing new to any of us however I think I'm just curious as to whether there is something we should be doing about this? Or is there really no issue and we should just carry on as we are?
Let's see, if your three year old son said 'Daddy I want to be a ballerina when I grow up' or if your wife to be said 'I don't like dresses so I'm going to wear a white trouser suit for our wedding' - How would you feel? Ok these may seem like 'silly' examples but it certainly gets you thinking.
If we do agree that there are inequalities in life, what shall we do about it? It's years of conditioning that has bought us to this way so there will be no quick fix overnight however we can make a difference. By being mindful and perhaps thinking before you speak/react then we may be able to alter certain situations.
Some may believe there are no issues at all and we should just carry on with life as is. However, I'm not one of those people. I want my children to grow up and feel respected but also responsible for how they make other people feel (to a certain extent). We can not control other peoples emotions or how they perceive certain things however we can be more open minded and create a World where it doesn't matter whether you are man, women, black, white, tall, short, abled bodied or missing a leg.
At the end of the day, we are all living beings and have the ability to construct a magnificent World where we can harvest love and develop ourselves to further achieve pure happiness not just for ourselves but for each other.
