This cartoon, don’t know from who, is in a report I was reading about gender roles, specifically in poorer rural areas where the divide is bigger.
The report is about a male dominated research and approach when it comes to interventions in for example agriculture. Then male researchers ask male villagers about the situation, and by doing so, bypassing and ignoring the other half of humanity:
WOMEN
Hadie and I are nowhere near a position that we need firewood or fetch water, or anything alike, yet, here and in the rest of the world, it all is male dominant.
While women do the hardest job!
Currently I am finishing studies, unable to work due to visa regulations, thus, I am home. I’m studying, gardening, writing, cleaning, cooking, laundry, shopping and watching over the cat. We don’t have real babies, but, if we had then I’d be the one taking care about them too. Obviously, I have time enough that I theoretically squeeze in a paid job as well. This typically is seen as something for women only…. Hell no! Men can do exactly the same!
I cannot not think about a woman we recently met. She was in her early twenties, well educated, spoke English very well, but, was married, thus had to leave her family to take care of her twins in a poorer neighborhood of a fishing village. And had to do the shopping, washing, laundry, etc. She looked pretty bored to me and living far under her true capabilities – poor soul..
I cannot not think about how cultures, forcefully or subtle, differentiate between genders. This regarding to rights, including (re)productive rights, wage-gaps, violence, having to wear a hijab or wearing it out free will, general attitudes and the lot.
Just because men have dicks they don’t have to show them (off) or act like being one!
So this one is for all women, and especially my woman, YOU ROCK!!!!
Unite, empower, and demand your rightful place on this planet and in all societies!
As the concept of work is divided in 3:
- Productive work – your paid job
- Reproductive work – child bearing, breast feeding and household work
- Community work – all work within with and for the direct community without pay
If all the hours women are working are considered to be paid to make it economic countable as in the economic benefit to society, then, men….. I’m so sorry… (no I’m not) but we are so insignificant compared to women! Our biological difference never ever can be a justification as compensation to be ‘on top’.
Hadie – I’m proud of you!
Abrupt and random compliment to all women!
Daniel Arendzen 
Lovely post.. I hope everyone realizes this and work towards empowering women
I totally agree! It’s that other half of humanity that needs to let go – men that is…
Lovely post….I think the male gender has to have a change of mindset….there is nothing like gender when it comes to things intellectual or even family aid
I wholeheartedly agree with you!
I wholeheartedly agree with you!
As a retired sociologist who worked to stress gender equality in the home to my male students who sometimes wanted to know why women don’t want to still cook and clean house, I salute you, sir!
Amen for that, thank you!
I think it goes both ways; just because women have cunts doesn’t give them an excuse to act like cunts!
Yes, there always are people like that too.. Women aren’t perfect either, but, globally, women generally are disproportionately behind men and that needs to change
Behind?
Wage gap, lower educated, forced marriages, not seen by institutions because women proportionally work way more in reproductive work than men, in that way behind 🙂
Though none of those are an issue in the US, do you think maybe some of those global issues have something to do with the fact that girls and women get pregnant and denied abortions? How do you succeed in education and career if you’re stuck pregnant, giving birth, and babysitting from the time you’re legal to the time they’re adults?
The issue with women’s rights in some countries, namely Islamic ones, is that the women are legal property of the men and therefore their lives are for their families and not themselves.
The issue with women’s rights in countries like the US is that the people don’t appreciate the freedom and liberty they have and how fortunate it is to be born a woman in a western country.
Of course the ones working harder and longer hours are going to get paid more; How about instead of equal opportunity to those who happen to be female we value equal opportunity to those who perform well at work and who are better than their competitors.
To answer your first 2 questions – In the last couple of decades the children per family, in average, in poor countries (as I think you’re referring to those) has dropped till just above the same average as the USA. Already with 1 child you can be stuck, especially when you cannot afford childcare, which is more a USA problem than from poor countries as in poor countries there are extended families in which one takes care of many kids so the moms can work.
As to your second argument, just to let you know I am a Muslim, I am living in an Islamic country and by no means the law is arranged in such a way that women are legal properties of men. I do not own my wife, in fact, I owe my wife a good, prosperous and healthy life. Just like Christianity there are different schools of thought in the Islam. Different interpretations of the same religion. Adventist, Catholics, and Reformed schools of thought also range from very progressive to ultra conservative. Thus, it’s not possible to see the Islam as 1 entity as we have too ultra conservatives (which you are referring to) and also very progressive interpretations (which I belong to).
You write: “How about instead of equal opportunity to those who happen to be female we value equal opportunity to those who perform well at work and who are better than their competitors.” in that I totally agree! But! that equal opportunity has to be given from the people who can, and, that’s men. Men are the majority of CEOs, higher management, etc, etc, who has the control over who gets paid how much. To make your suggestion happen, let the labor market with its competition work, then all salaries for all job descriptions need to be public so everyone knows of each other how much they are earning and why. That’s the only fair basis to measure equal pay for work.
The fact is that instead of blaming men and victimizing women we should be educating not only women but men, boys, and girls on choosing education and profession over breeding and stay-at-homing (that’s IF we care at all about the general success of girls and women).
Actually, Sharia countries (which means countries that enforce Islamic doctrine by law) do consider women legal property of their fathers and husbands (who they have no choice but to marry and breed with under their family’s orders). They legally punish women and girls for having sex outside of marriage and for being raped, forcing them to cover their bodies with hijabs in the hot sun. Oppression is the word for this, it is not an interpretation.
People who can? Are you suggesting that women can’t ? That’s a copout excuse for women to stay lazy and complacent. If you want something you cant just make excuses and have it handed to you out of childish fairness.
Want more female CEOs? Encourage more women to start their own companies instead of blaming the general male population for a valid wage discrepancy.
Huh? Just look at my picture – she’s my wife, I don’t see a hijab? And, are you a Muslim living in an Islamic country? But let’s not discuss that one here.
Actually, I don’t know what your point of argument is. Did you actually read the whole post, including the link to the report I used as starting point?
My first point is that I’m giving a compliment to women and recognize their hard unpaid work that does benefit society as a whole, regardless which society. Women can be free, women can be oppressed, women can be lazy, hardworking, have equal pay and opportunities or totally not, that’s specific examples and not my point.
My second point, or mention, is that we live in a male dominated world. Male can also be oppressive, progressive and all that, thus, if women gets the recognition they deserve it also has to come from men (so it is the MEN who need education in that, not women only as you write, so we agree in that too). And there are a lot of men belittling women and that I don’t agree in.
So yes, I do blame the male dominated world and yes, indirectly, blame men as a man, for keeping that alive, for our part of the problem in inequality. And yes, I only encourage women to be heard, that they get empowered and be in their rightful place, equally to men, on this planet. How that locally is solved, under which conditions women are living and who has which responsibility I am not writing about.
So, what am I saying wrong?