"Happy wife, happy life," seems to be a social
norm adopted in western culture and instilled in youth from a very young age.
This is the surface of an excessive emphasis on the importance of men treating
woman with the utmost respect, maintaining gender values in our culture. However,
from a personal experience and witnessing this in person, it is my opinion that
emphasizing these values can be damaging to the roles men and women take in adolescence
and adulthood.
Remembering grade school, I recall a constant push for boys
to hold girls to a higher standard and level of respect for no other reason other
than the fact that "they are girls." Early in elementary school, boys
and girls were even separated during gym classes out of concern that girls' aggression
did not match that of the boys. These protocols, taken without giving children
any real reason other than their known gender, I believe caused myself and many
other young boys to develop a superiority complex towards woman. Additionally,
this automatically caused young girls to self label themselves as inferiors. In
dramatic cases, from my own experience, girls grew into resorting to their
gender to escape confronting some of their problems. I even recall extreme
cases, where girls partook in bullying boys, only to hide behind their
socialized gender, a girl. This goes both ways, as boys resorted their gender
to being inalienably more powerful than girls, which in reality neither genders
have physically matured before the 3rd grade.
What a child learns in these early stages of development is
crucial to the social roles they take as adults. This I believe contributes to
the tense divide of sexes we constantly see in today's culture. I personally
feel that I have been forced into the typical social role of a
"male," having small traces of assumed superiority over women for no
reason other than the role of my un-earned gender. While at the same time, Woman have victimized themselves at all ages in
situations that they are perfectly capable of facing themselves. We just assume
ourselves to these roles because we were given them from birth; something I and
many men and women in my generation are guilty of.
My argument is not to deem boys and girls equal on all
levels, because they are not. Boys are biologically different from girls.
However, this does not mean they are to be treated differently and deserve pre-determined social roles. At a
young age, if treated as equals, boys and girls will take on their own social
roles and a healthier dynamic will be established between the two genders,
helping fill the social divide. It is important that boys are no longer arbitrarily
required to walk on egg shells around girls and treat them with an overwhelming
amount of respect, but rather watch what they say around all people and treat
everyone with respect. More specifically, before the third grade, boys and
girls should partake in the same gym classes and not be segregated in academic
and extracurricular subjects. This will teach girls from a young age that they
are not confined to a specific type of activities that their social roles
allow. The larger mix of genders in these activities will have the potential to
expose our world to what women may contribute to male dominated areas and what
men may contribute to female dominated areas.
These educational procedures obviously cannot last forever, as
girls and boys will develop physically and emotionally and will no longer take
the same social role. However, if they begin their lives on the same playing
field, the social roles they do grow up and take will be healthier for the
overall relationship between both genders. We will see less of a gender imbalance
in STEM subjects, extracurricular such as dance or contact sports, and career
paths like military or law enforcement. Starting both genders from the same
social placement, will allow for a healthier, unforced path to the roles they
take as adults.
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