Jon Wong on Gender Equity
One of the few blogs where I can regularily check back every hour and find new posts. At any rate, on the topic of gender equity, which is essentially the concept that includes feminism, women/men's rights, and all pertaining topics, I think we need to be careful in deciding the difference between rights and biology.
This topic was one of the heated discussions experienced in my first Model UN conference and the main issue that I noticed (because I didn't do ANY talking during my first conference), was that people always have one set way of looking at gender issues and for some reason, people are less likely to relinquish their views on this subject than any other issue discussed.
First off, let me say that there is no such thing as gender equality. Kudos to everyone on this board for being careful to focus on the more realistic topic of gender equity. As Karen stated, equity means an individual gets what he or she deserves. Anyone who feels that there ought not to be any gender differences at all is failing to grasp the biological fact that men and women ARE different. There is no getting away from the facts like men cannot give birth, women cannot get kicked in the balls, men are generally physically stronger than women, and women are born with breasts for the purpose of feeding their young. A good example of this is in professional sports. The fastest tennis serve ever recorded by a man was 163 mph. The fastest tennis serve ever recorded by a woman was 127 mph... which is the speed the average professional male tennis player serves at. Would it be fair to say "to hell with seperating the genders in sports; we're just going to crunch all the categories into two catgeories: Singles and Doubles." I'm sure you'd have women up in arms talking about the unfairness of such a sport. Hold on... but if men and women are equal, then they should compete equally too right? And this is only the biological factor when I'm sure that men and women most likely develop psychologically different. But I'm not stating that as a fact because I don't know for sure.
Feminism, in and of itself I believe is necessary. Historically, women have been treated unfairly and they still are in many countries. This fight for gender equity is important because there just as there are things about men and women that are biologically different, there are things about men and women that are the same, and there should thus be no difference in rights granted in such situations.
On the other side, the fight for women's rights can, like any noble cause, be subjected to much head turning and interpretations. Like the women who argue that they should be allowed to walk around public topless because "it's legal for men to do it." Honestly, there are plenty of gender inequities that are worth fighting for opposed to the fight to able to walk around topless, even though there is a biological difference in the physical build between a man and woman. Gender inequity in first world countries has really been cut down a smaller selection of issues that are nowhere near as important as the gender inequities experienced in many third world countries. How many feminists who fight for "women's rights in Canada" would fight with equal fervor for "women's rights in Zimbabwe"?
And what about men's rights? Inequity exists everywhere and as David pointed out, men do not escape unscathed. I'll give a personal example. When I applied for the Queen's Con-Ed program, the first question I was faced with "do you want to teach elementary or high school?" And when I asked about the difference, the first thing I was told was a flat out, "if you do elementary, you're going to have a harder time finding a job." No subtleties, no false hopes, it was a stated fact. Because I am a male, I WILL have a harder time finding a job as an elementary teacher. And don't be ignorant and tell me "But there have been no cases of child molestation with a female teacher" cause that would be untrue.
And don't even get me started about how guys are always expected to do the asking come prom time. It drives me up the wall.
This topic was one of the heated discussions experienced in my first Model UN conference and the main issue that I noticed (because I didn't do ANY talking during my first conference), was that people always have one set way of looking at gender issues and for some reason, people are less likely to relinquish their views on this subject than any other issue discussed.
First off, let me say that there is no such thing as gender equality. Kudos to everyone on this board for being careful to focus on the more realistic topic of gender equity. As Karen stated, equity means an individual gets what he or she deserves. Anyone who feels that there ought not to be any gender differences at all is failing to grasp the biological fact that men and women ARE different. There is no getting away from the facts like men cannot give birth, women cannot get kicked in the balls, men are generally physically stronger than women, and women are born with breasts for the purpose of feeding their young. A good example of this is in professional sports. The fastest tennis serve ever recorded by a man was 163 mph. The fastest tennis serve ever recorded by a woman was 127 mph... which is the speed the average professional male tennis player serves at. Would it be fair to say "to hell with seperating the genders in sports; we're just going to crunch all the categories into two catgeories: Singles and Doubles." I'm sure you'd have women up in arms talking about the unfairness of such a sport. Hold on... but if men and women are equal, then they should compete equally too right? And this is only the biological factor when I'm sure that men and women most likely develop psychologically different. But I'm not stating that as a fact because I don't know for sure.
Feminism, in and of itself I believe is necessary. Historically, women have been treated unfairly and they still are in many countries. This fight for gender equity is important because there just as there are things about men and women that are biologically different, there are things about men and women that are the same, and there should thus be no difference in rights granted in such situations.
On the other side, the fight for women's rights can, like any noble cause, be subjected to much head turning and interpretations. Like the women who argue that they should be allowed to walk around public topless because "it's legal for men to do it." Honestly, there are plenty of gender inequities that are worth fighting for opposed to the fight to able to walk around topless, even though there is a biological difference in the physical build between a man and woman. Gender inequity in first world countries has really been cut down a smaller selection of issues that are nowhere near as important as the gender inequities experienced in many third world countries. How many feminists who fight for "women's rights in Canada" would fight with equal fervor for "women's rights in Zimbabwe"?
And what about men's rights? Inequity exists everywhere and as David pointed out, men do not escape unscathed. I'll give a personal example. When I applied for the Queen's Con-Ed program, the first question I was faced with "do you want to teach elementary or high school?" And when I asked about the difference, the first thing I was told was a flat out, "if you do elementary, you're going to have a harder time finding a job." No subtleties, no false hopes, it was a stated fact. Because I am a male, I WILL have a harder time finding a job as an elementary teacher. And don't be ignorant and tell me "But there have been no cases of child molestation with a female teacher" cause that would be untrue.
And don't even get me started about how guys are always expected to do the asking come prom time. It drives me up the wall.
posted by JW at 9:36 PM
1 Comments:
good job. i like how you started the post all calm and collected, and then ended off with an irritated "And don't even get me started about how guys are always expected to do the asking come prom time. It drives me up the wall."
it was priceless. and i completely agree.
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