Miaow

Men are not the enemy, truly, they are not, not our men at any rate.

But there HAS to have been a time when they were, when they imposed a testicular view of God on us, when they realised that since we give birth, we'd do anything to protect the children, ANYTHING. And by anything I mean everything. We'd do all the work, run the society, the clan, the tribe, the huge extended family, feed it, clothe it, keep it clean and then when the men came back from chasing meat animals, having eaten all the meat, we'd shag 'em and expect naught for our troubles. Not even very good sex.

Now of course we do expect great sex, we expect them to share responsibility, work, household chores, everything but what colour to paint the house. But as a gender, we don't sodding well get what we want.

A couple of days ago, Sleepy sent me this superb article by Joan Bakewell. In it she points out that we have come a long way in our fight, but we have by no means arrived. She also makes a point that I myself have made on several occasions, that women's rights are one of the most important issues in the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent.

Last week, I went in to see one of the senior Bank personnel. Kevin has seen her on a number of occasions and she was quite familiar with my inability to get my teaching qualifications recognised here. In fact, she says she sees it all the time, teachers, doctors, dentists, all professions remarkably well qualified coming in from abroad. All that is, except engineers. Engineering qualifications are recognised here.
Kevin is an engineer and his professional body have been very successful in convincing the government to accept other countries' qualifications.

Out of the major professions now, teaching, medicine, dentistry, law and engineering, engineering remains the only male dominated one. So, this makes me ask, is it because men shout louder, is it because they shout more effectively, or is it because they are listened to more readily?

I have been extremely lucky in that my assistant this term is just excellent at his job. But then so were Lori and Jo. They also made a great team, a team that was greater than the individual parts. They were, as a team, and as individuals, a phenomenon. And yet they never received the amount of acclaim that Rob has. I would argue that his acclaim is well deserved, but no more than theirs would have been.

The other day, a school evaluation came in. One of the pictures was of Rob, with his name beneath it and it reminded me that after one day of Ben coming into work with me, doing the puppet show and coming round on the trails with me, there were three drawings of him that mentioned him by name.

Men get noticed more. And they get noticed by women. The majority of primary school teachers we get in and the majority of parents accompanying, are women.
This is where is starts. Already the boys are pushier and already their parents, of both genders, are supporting that. You have to be a pretty damn committed and AWARE teacher to do even the first thing about redressing that balance.
You start off by making sure you ask the girls questions as often as the boys, you try to stop the boys from answering anyway. But the girls' confidence has already been eroded, it's already going backwards, at the age of five. Fewer girls will answer confidently than boys will.

But in spite of this, enough barriers have been removed that girls are out-achieving boys. So what happens? As soon as this is noticed, the cry goes up to even things up for boys, in spite of the hundreds of years of girls' underachievement when nary an eyebrow was raised.

And yes, it's about equality, not about girls overtaking boys. But wait! Soon girls are out in the workforce and in spite of their comparative overachievement, their pay is lower, their career prospects compromised, they are over-looked or treated like dolls. Everyone loves Ugly Betty, but in reality, the Ugly Betties don't have the self-confidence.

We do it to ourselves. We do it to each other. We misinterpret female lack of confidence as over-confidence. We see a woman who has adapted to the status quo, the inability of anyone to judge her simply on how good she is at the job, we see her push her sexuality as a means of communication and instead of looking at what lies beneath, we slap her down. And yet, who should break that circle? The woman, who will then be overlooked, or the man who reinforces it and makes it carry one?

And at the other end of the scale, those of us who have become really good at our jobs, through experience, through having to fight, slip gently into invisibility.

So what? Why bother to constantly harp on about it? Why not just accept what is?

Because the first step to any change is awareness. And because men are not the enemy. My sons, my husband, the men I work with, all of these are wonderful men who value and support the women in their lives, who cannot tolerate the iniquity of suppression.
But if every time we have a conversation about this, or something gets said by one of us, or one of these men, there is some small hope of change, even a small step closer to equality, that will make this world fairer for my daughter, my granddaughter(s), the women I work with, the women I care about.

Because we ALL sin against each other, and we are ALL the victims.
Men gain when women are happier and more fulfilled. And then those happier and more fulfilled men and women produce happier and more fulfilled children of both genders. This HAS to be our future.

And roar? Why should I only be heard when I roar? Why not when I miaow? But whatever I do, I must not remain passive, silent, complacent, because to do that is to acquiesce.
The issue of female inequality must be raised at every turn, by every right-minded one of us.