The Gender Parity
- Oct 30, 2017
- 5 min read
Ah, ancient Rome. The time of emperors, gladiators, and glory. A patriarchal society where worth depended on manliness and duty–in particular duty to the citizens, prodigy, and father. That left women in the background, often depicted as troublemakers, like the meddlesome goddesses Juno, Venus, and Minerva in the Aeneid, or weak, like Dido of Carthage who committed suicide rather than fulfill her duty to her people, or expendable, like Creusa who died forgotten by her own husband in the fall of Troy or Lavinia who was used as a bargaining token to join Troy and Italy.
But luckily we have advanced as human beings after two thousand years of evolution and all people are created equal, regardless of their genitalia. Or not.
Jump a few millennium forward and enters the 21st century in all its developed glory. We have women’s suffrage (except in the Vatican), legal rights (unless you live in Yemen), universal education (not including sub-saharan Africa), and rights to ones body (save for in India and Timor-Leste). Kind of. Well, better than nothing I suppose.
But, one may argue that all of those countries practicing sex discrimination are third-world and therefore just need to catch up to “modern standards” and that the Vatican has always been run by a patriarchal papacy since the Holy Roman Empire and would be too painful to change. Fine, fair enough, but what about gender inequality in more economically developed countries (MEDCs)?
The lack of women in leading business positions in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States has had a detrimental effect on their nations’ economies. In the former two, the lack of women in the workforce has greatly contributed to the stagnant economy. The United States, the pillar of freedom for all, has just 66 women for every 100 men in leading business positions, leading to a huge loss in GDP due to lack of economic growth. This nation in particular is one of the worst performing developed nations in terms of unequal staring of unpaid work, representation of women in politics, violence against women, single mothers, and teenage pregnancy. Yeah sure, suffrage and stricter anti-harassment laws are nice, but being treated like equals would be nicer still.
And yet, that is not the worst of it. Because while women suffer from gender inequality greatly, while the economy fails to reach its full potential, that is still not the whole story. Often, we forget the other side of the story–the effect of gender inequality on men.
The expectations of masculinity, a standard of stoicism (absolute control over one's emotions and duty) and fierce machismo, has not changed much since the time of Romans. For, while most of the nations in the world have at least acknowledged that women are not property and have a more equal place in society (unless you live in Yemen and are still half a witness), we have failed to remove such stereotypes on men. Why is it that we never stop to question that while women are more likely to attempt suicide, men are more likely to succeed in carrying it out? Why not bring to light the fact that 1 in 6 men have experienced abusive sexual experiences before age 18? Because it goes against our beliefs, our societal expectations of masculinity that date back to the age Etruscan kings and beyond. Because men are not allowed to show weakness or sensitivity. Because there is a stigma about sitting and talking about one’s problems–it for some reason shows a failure in strength and character instead of a profound courage.
Even 5-year old boys are not excused from this expectation. Brian Gresko describes how his son wanted to dress up as Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time for Halloween (I mean, who wouldn’t? She’s smart, sarcastic, and has pink hair!), but for fear of his son getting bullied in school, the father choose to change his own halloween costume from the vampire queen to the Wolverine, convincing his son to dress up as the Hulk instead to prevent the kid from getting teased. I mean, it would be awesome if we had gender-neutral preschools where people cared less about what’s in a person’s pants and more about their personality, but hey that’s just me.
Of course, there's a whole new story when you start talking about societal views on transgender or non-cisgender individuals. For example, 1 in 2 transgender individuals have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime and largely because they do not belong to the traditional gender binary, their struggle is often ignored (transgender individuals did in fact exist in the Roman Empire, but they were often on the periphery or did not meet very kind fates). Perhaps eliminating gender stereotypes altogether would be the best course of action for all involved, regardless of where a person lies on the gender spectrum. Of course, this is neither as simple nor as easy as it appears, not with thousands of years of history perpetrating the narrative. But, it's a start.
So perhaps rather than saying boys will be boys, rather than harming everyone by a) telling women that they should forgive their assaulters because men just couldn’t help themselves and b) by teaching men that they are animals controlled by their base instincts and c) perpetrating the misconception that assault is solely a man harassing a woman instead of a person of any gender or age being a perpetrator or victim, perhaps we should switch gears and take a different approach. Maybe, just maybe, we should stop referencing the Aeneid and other fun ancient role models for all of our gender stereotyping needs and change the definitions to keep up with the times, taking gender spectrum and equality into account. And don’t worry if you’re not sure if you can keep up with such a dramatic change (gender equality, oh my!), because you’re human–adapting to change is what you do.
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