Happy International Women's Day
This morning I saw two really strong images that have stuck
with me. The first was this
The second was of my niece celebrating her 4th birthday
dressed as wonder woman.
Of course the juxta position between what I want for her
(everything), and for my great nieces, and the daughters of my friends, and
what that ticking down clock tells me they are likely to get is pretty
shocking. I want to believe that living as they do in a wealthy country that
their gender won’t make any difference to what they can achieve.
And relative to the rest of the world, my niece will be
doing alright in terms of the protections the law offers her. But here’s a
couple of gendered experiences I hope have disappeared by the time she’s a
teenager (but I fear won’t have):
-
Being worried about what her career choices
(& habits) say about her as a woman
I don’t want her to have to be an
ambassador for all women if she chooses to be a pilot or a firefighter. Neither
do I want people to assume she’s not a feminist if she’s a hairdresser or a
stay at home mum. I want her to be able to choose what makes her happy on her
own behalf without considering her gender – and I want that for boys too.
-
Being taught to equate being liked with being
mistreated
Most women I know had to ‘grow
out’ of bad boys. Men who treated them with distain, bullies really. And is
this any wonder when little girls get told ‘it’s only because he likes you’
when they get teased or their hair pulled. We’re teaching girls to equate
disrespect with love. And that’s awful for everyone. At school I once heard a
girl say (about a delightful, and very straight guy), ‘I’m sorry he’s so lovely-
I’m sure he must be gay.’ WHAT!!! Let’s leave aside the weird assumption your
sexuality has any impact on how pleasant a human being you are, and consider
what she actually meant here. What she meant was – he’s so nice he can’t
possibly find me attractive, and anyway since he’s kind I don’t fancy him
either. What an awful thing to do to girls. What an awful thing to do to boys!
I want society to teach girls it’s ok to fancy boys who’ll be nice to them,
that’s not too much to ask is it?
-
Being sexualised without her consent, and when
she is too young to understand it.
I don’t want her to get whistled
at from cars, to be approached on the street by men calling her baby. I don’t
want her to be told she should be flattered by the attention, or that she’ll
break a load of hearts when she grows up. I don’t want her to have to think
about what dressing comfortably in summer might make some men think about when
she is 12 (or 15 or 17 or 67 for that matter) years old.
-
Being taught about sex without being taught
about pleasure.
Sex education in this country
starts with an erection and ends with ejaculation (I wish I could lay claim to
that phrase but I stole it off my mate Ester – you can read her stuff here).
Isn’t that awful – we get taught how to know if a man is turned on, but not whether
we are. I was in my 20’s before I worked out what really floated my boat (a
phrase that with better sex education we’d consider super filthy), and loads of
girls just assume their first time will be painful or unpleasant. Women have
sex with men who don’t turn them on all the time. And they do that because sex
education focuses on really liking someone and not how you can tell if you
physically fancy them. You can really really like someone and not want to have
sex with them – that’s called friendship – it’s awesome. You can really, really
want to have sex with someone but have no interest in being their friend – and that’s
fine too. One day hopefully you have a buddy that you want to have sex with –
that’s the ideal, but it’s not the only way.
-
Being defined by what she chooses to do with her
vagina
She won’t be frigid if she says
no to someone she doesn’t want to sleep with. Nor will she be a slut if she
says yes to someone she does. She’ll be herself and valuable for a million
other things. I’d be delighted if the rest of the world accepted that.
-
Being offered male help (& feeling able to
accept it)
I’ve been really lucky throughout
my career to have been mentored by some amazing and powerful women. I’ve also
been lucky to be mentored by some really fabulous men. And that can be more
unusual – not because there aren’t loads of guys out there who just want to
develop the brightest people regardless of their gender. But because there are
risks around the perception of why an older man would take a younger woman out
for a coffee to talk about their career that there simply aren’t for same sex
mentor/ mentee relationships. I’m lucky that the men who’ve taught me about
business planning, finance, about how it’s ok to get angry - but not so ok to
show it in meetings, these guys were brave enough, and sensible enough to
ignore what people might think and treat me the same as they would a young guy
with my potential and my faults. I don’t want my niece to have to worry that
her male co-workers have ulterior motives for helping her – or for those colleagues
not to offer her a hand for fear of how it’ll make them look. I want her to be a brain at work, not an
ornament or liability.
-
Being told what a woman is (or a man for that
matter)
Men who are direct are direct.
Women who are direct are bossy or bitches. Women who are sensitive to the
emotions of people around them are women, but men who react this way are soft.
It’s bollocks. If we can get away from ladylike, manning up, being a good girl
or a brave boy. If we could get to a place where all we had to be was ourselves
– the world would be a much better place, for my nieces, and my great nieces,
and for my nephews too.
Let's keep working towards that shall we. Happy International Women's Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment