Ongoing plight of women in the workplace – International Women’s Day

It is depressing but not at all surprising that women still need to hold events such as the International Women’s Day this week, to try to continue the push for equality etc. The same group of men who were eagerly doing the crossed arms ’X’ or W symbol all week, are the same who need to face reality…

I just cannot understand why we can’t just keep life simple. If a woman wants to be a bricklayer and she acquires the necessary skill, let her get on with it. If there are male-dominated or female-dominated professions, FINE! provided such domination is coincidental and a matter of choice and not as a result of one sex blocking the other or ganging up on the other or squeezing the other out. There are some things that many women (won’t generalise by saying ’all’) simply do not like to get into and same for men. Nothing wrong with those fields being dominated by one or the other, provided it is totally a matter of choice

There are inconsistencies everywhere. Some people want the tradition of being ’walked down the aisle’ by their fathers, but wonder why some of these barriers have been impossible to remove. You can’t have it both ways. If you are religious and believe in the ’man is the head of the family’ doctrine in the bible verbatim and refuse to accept that perhaps some of those teachings have passed their use by date, because the world has moved on – it is not amoral to try to move with the times a bit, but there will have to be a secularity needed, without necessarily depriving religious folk of what they believe in – it is the attempt to bring all that into a secular society that has led to the continuation of the bias out there. Is it possible for a man who believe he is the head of the family and all that, to try to keep that attitude to his own domain at home, if assuming his family choose to go with that, but when he gets to the office set that aside and see/treat his female colleagues as equals and relate to them exactly as he would his male colleagues? – highly unlikely. That is why we still see women being paid less in some jobs, getting boxed into only some type of roles and the handful who buck that trend are set up as an example that the problem no longer exists.

It is such a complex problem.

Where we should get to, is a society where we can all disregard our differences and simply focus on relevance. If some folks want to celebrate their differences, FINE! it should be about them desperately seeking equality, it should just be another celebration, if they wish to. Right now, these various groups have to keep on fighting for equal treatment. The problem is: WE ARE ALL GUILTY. A woman fighting for equality for women today, could be the same woman typing up homophobic stuff on twitter tomorrow, or the LGBTQ person fighting for LGBTQ equality today could be the same person shouting out racist slurs at a football match tomorrow. There are too many ’courses’. The only possible solution will be a ’live & let live’ policy, where we all just ignore our differences, without giving a hoot about differences and just letting people be, letting them succeed in whatever they are skilled in, without trying to box them off. But who can get this reset done? You look at a sport like darts; why can’t women compete against men? well, now they do. But if women decide the atmosphere isn’t what they fancy, do you change such atmosphere? or let women set up a separate league? the dilemma remains the same. Asking women to box against men or play tennis against men etc., isn’t fair right? but perhaps let people give it a go, if they want to. Don’t make it a taboo. But then, there would be the Health & Safety concern….

I don’t know! I don’t have all the answers, but eliminating the focus on differences may well give us a better chance as a society, than what we have today..

Either way, it would be good to get to a time when groups such as women can celebrate whatever day they wish to celebrate, as just a celebration and not a desperate need for awareness of their continuing plight/challenges they still face. We each have to mend our ways! There us no monster out there, WE ALL are the monster(s), it is each and every one of us responsible for these problems!