Gender Equality

Today, we have quite a awkward situation between men and woman. On one hand, we still have links to our more traditional thinking regarding men and women (and trust me, this applies whether you were brought up Western or Eastern, although perhaps varying in degrees on certain issues), on the other, we are learning of philosophies such as gender equality, the feminist movement and we are being brought to light on issues such as women receiving less pay, being discriminated at work, etc etc.

If you think you're not a sexist, or this is not a real issue, then simply consider how society reacts to a situation differently if it was a man or a woman doing a particular action. First, just think of how parents treat their sons and daughters. If one discovers their son is having sex, one is not likely to make a big deal out of it, and in fact might be proud of his/her son for "growing into a man", if its a girl, needless to say the treatment would be very different.

A brief look at our evolutionary past could easily explain many of the differences between men and women. If the past, social roles were clear for men and women. Men were built to hunt and gather resources. They evolved superior spatial skills, superior strength and they are judged on what they bring home for dinner and whether they dominate other males of the same species. A men with multiple sexual partners is one who is successful, and is thus respected and revered in society, and the fact that he is wanted makes him even more appealing to other women, because it is a sign he has good genes. The most successful males were those that were aggressive, physically strong and have leadership qualities. Women, on the other hand, evolved to be good mothers and gatherers, maintaining relationships were a key part of a woman's life. A promiscuous woman is scorned upon, as no man can be sure it's the child in her is his.

This would also explain many of today's female behavior, such as fondness for shopping, dressing up, gossiping, wearing make-up etc etc, while men like things like sports, video games, machines.. yada yada yada. That is why so many still cling to thoughts that women should stay at home to care for the baby, and men should work and earn lots of money. It has been hard-wired in us for so long that as a matter of fact, all of us judge people based on their sexes to a certain degree.

Knowing the origin of the discrimination between the sexes might clear things up a bit, but it doesn't offer a solution today's problem. Some, in fact, use this knowledge to justify their sexism. If woman evolved to stay at home and care for the family, then we should in fact, teach them to do so! Why should we go against our natural inclinations?

Well, if you ask me, I'd like to think society has progressed a bit from the cavemen stage. During the period where humans evolved, most of the resources can only be obtained through physical means which men are more suited for, but today, much of the modern workforce have jobs that physical strength hardly matters anymore. In fact, more and more of today's jobs concern with dealing with people, something women have been able to do better since the beginning. A woman shouldn't be paid less for doing the same job as a man, if she does it just as well, but this isn't an easy thing to fix as many employers do not even know that they are discriminating at all. In fact, much of our sexism is unconscious.

Go back to the sex example, and how a man is celebrated while a woman is scorned for having sex. A virgin man is laughed upon, a virgin girl is praised as being pure. If there is a lesson we learned from examining the origins in which we judge males and females differently, it is that most of us do it unconsciously, and we have no real moral basis for judging someone based on their sex. The most reproductively successful strategy in the past isn't necessarily the kind of way we want members of our modern society to act, nor does the evolutionary origins of any behavior justify it's moral rightness or wrongness. In fact, knowing that we are naturally inclined towards judging people based on their gender should be a reminder to us to weed out discriminative thoughts whenever they appear.

If what I said on evolutionary psychology is right, then we would expect that most women get more satisfaction for raising children and more men will be happy winning the bread for the family. This is exactly what we observe in real life. There is nothing wrong with that, but it no doubt reinforces much of the discrimination we see today. This doesn't mean that there are no woman who places their priority of their careers rather then their family, or man who prefer to be stay-at-home-dads, nor does it mean that it is justified for us to treat men and women unequally in the workplace or anywhere else. If anything, however hard it may be, we shouldn't be judging someone on what they choose to do, no matter they are male or female, but how well they do it.