The Irony of Gender Equality

The Irony of Gender Equality

Social propriety changes with time. From being chivalrous to not speaking of women in terms of any concession they need, the socially acceptable views of the gender equation has come a long a way.

The 1960s’ bra burning protests proclaimed the idea of women raising their voice against social oppressions designed to subjugate them. However much later, living up one’s femininity came to be considered as the ultimate expression of women’s liberation.

Across all cultures globally, irrespective of socio-economic strata, the woman who steps out of her home and family to earn a living is considered to have emancipated from the social norms that traditionally define womanhood by restricting their roles. By stepping out of her home, she therefore stakes her claim of being equal to men in all respects. Individuals and organisations who have taken it upon themselves to be the guardian of women’s rights vouch for this belief.

However, in this fight for winning the tag of “being equal with men”, an important basic aspect of life is lost.

When human beings evolved from being foragers to cultivators, the “job role” of men and women in the smallest social unit — the family, got re-defined. Men became the bread-earner while women became the nurturer and caregiver in the family…because the woman was biologically designed and empowered to give birth to a new life. Far from being unequal, this very definition of being the nurturer and caregiver, based on the basic instinct of our primitive ancestors, was the corner-stone to create equilibrium within the smallest social unit of human beings — the family.

The negative fall-out of the above arrangement was that gradually women lost their voice in the social structures outside the family and also within. As the human species evolved further to emerge as a modern social being, it set about to redefine existing social norms. And so women were encouraged to set out of their homes to rectify the wrong done to them over centuries.

Consequently, today it is thought that the highest social good that a woman can achieve is to prove her status of being equal with men.

But what about the equilibrium within the smallest social unit of human beings — the family? With both the parents setting out of home to be the bread earner, who would fulfill the task of nurturer and care-giver? Broken families and children taking to addictions, abuse and violence — a common sight in today’s world, is the outcome of this disequilibrium that prevails in families across the globe, today.

No, i’m not advocating the cause of homecoming for women!

Rather, in view of this changing role of the woman as a bread earner in the family, the society should accept the role-reversal of the husband to being the nurturer and care-giver in the family.

This would ensure that equilibrium sets in within the smallest social unit of human beings — the family…and thereby in the larger society.

Yes, i’m espousing the cause of gender equality for men by granting social acceptance for househusband as an equally respectable role as that of the housewife.