Gender, an unusual name to divide and classify people. A constructed artifact to create shortcuts for stereotypes and for complicating things up.
We humans love complicating and messing simple things up!
Instead of recognizing persons for their value, we are confused by labels and what derives from labeling people, virtual ghettos. Stupid blondes, sexy brunette, bad-guy blacks, less-valuable women, disgusting homosexuals.
These are few of the biases that society, so we all, uses everyday and in the most normal situations, at bars, stuck in morning traffic, watching TV.
A society full of self-nominated smart people and geniuses cannot live without prejudices, in a flowing river of "who care"s and "not my business", everyone can make a difference.
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| HEforShe |
The amazing cultural and social initiative HeforShe, promoted by Emma Watson and UN Women, is a beautiful campaign in order to raise awareness in that share of population that don't believe that women deserve equal opportunities, equal treatment, equal rights. This large share is transverse and careless of religion, skin color and social status, and more important gender itself.
Men and women must be united during this changing, more important this cultural changing needs to be wanted by every party involved, both men and women.
As perfectly stated by Watson, "if not me, who? if not now, when?", now we have to take substantial steps, gender gap will be closed in not less than 110 years (The Week, 2015).
First thing is to change our mindset before asking legal protection or governmental actions. It is useless to compel persons doing what they cannot understand or to prevent actions twisted in the daily routine and codified in centuries in DNA.
But, we first should change, boys and girls together. Thanks to loving and smart mothers, more and more boys understand the need of empowering girls, giving them the opportunity to be themselves, to be respected in and out their homes. Girls should start wanting and pretending more, at school, at work, at home. It is incredible that from the doomed age of gender expression, people, parents, teachers start acting differently in case you are a boy or a girl.
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| HEforSHE supporters: (clockwise) Eddie Redmayne, David Tennant, Chris Colfer, Harry Styles |
Girls must be well-educated, well dressed, polished spoken words, they cannot play masculine sports, they cannot be good in scientific subjects, they cannot express their opinions without being mocked. Not a better situation neither for boys, they can play strong sports, and they can be as hyperactive as they want, and as long as they want, but they cannot express their feelings, they cannot cry or being emotional, these are female prerogatives. When this distinction is made clear and visible to children, the gender gap can only wide and affect other parts of an enjoyable life.
Gender equality is being study in order to understand how society copes with including every persons in its mechanisms. The ranking, edited by World Economic Forum, makes clear that the most careful states expresse their concerns towards women, children, and environment creating a new holy trinity.
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| The Global Gender Gap Index, WEF, 2015 |
We find again our friends Norway and Finland as top of the class, since their focus is not merely on profit and human indifference, but is on human well-being, meaning also gender equality.
Even if the goal of the research of WEF is purely economic intent, stating that "the most important determinant of a country’s competitiveness is its human talent—the skills and productivity of its workforce. Similarly, an organization’s performance is determined by the human capital that it possesses and its ability to use this resource efficiently. Ensuring the healthy development and appropriate use of half of the world’s available talent pool thus has a vast bearing on how competitive a country may become or how efficient a company may be" (The Global Gender Gap Index, WEF, 2015), we should think that excluding women, therefore, half of worldwide population, would have terrible consequences on the present and future society.
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As Jennifer Lawrence pointed out, women get lower wages, compared to men with same qualification and job description. Even if her example is quite uncommon, it is a fact that girls had, have and will have lower wages. As you can see from the infographics, women wages improved in 10-year lapse, but it is still lower of 50% than men wages.
Not all the blame is for boys, but also for girl!
The path from a decent wage to a "woman-impaired wage" is long and complicated, as it is straightforward and easy. You start by decreasing a certain amount, because you are going to be pregnant at some point of your life, you can be 15 or 50, but motherhood is a huge obstacle. Then decrease it of another 15% just because a man would be better than you in this position, so be grateful that they choose you. Then again because for sure you will be late, because of motherhood ( told you was a huuuge obstacle), another 5% because you'll be less productive because you'll be worried about your heirs, did he take the lunch box?. And finally a big percentage because women are not good negotiator.
It's not because it's an ability that we don't have, but the ability of negotiating is biased because of our low esteem and fear.
"Are we socially conditioned to behave this way?
We’ve only been able to vote for what, 90 years?...
Could there still be a lingering habit of trying to express our opinions
in a certain way that doesn’t 'offend' or 'scare' men?"
Jennifer Lawrence
Damn, J.Law you get it right!
When you have to negotiate your wage, your boss is a guy or a female, but you are still scared to ask what you deserve for your value, then, after you get less, you actually thank them, otherwise you are labeled as spoil or a b!tch.
We need to be reassured that everyone likes us, how we look, how we work, how we react to low wages. In order to not upset the universe equilibrium, we prefer accept the situation, doing too little to change it.
When a woman gets low wages, it means that the family she cares for is in economic distress. A difficult family economic situation means educational problems, which generates future low-wage workers.
This will eventually turn as the most negative social condition that we've ever posed to the world.
Why don't give more trust to women?
Why don't women take more courage, and face this situation?
Now it is the good time to change, men are at our side!
'Til our next meeting,
Eleonora
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