Equality Or Dominance

Misandrist – a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against men: the counterpart to a misogynist is a misandrist.

The other morning Paul, who is a signwriter by trade, commented that a woman signwriter, of whom there are many, was organising a women only signwriters event. If a man were to try this there would be such a baying and howling from this woman and her cronies at the exclusion of her gender but it’s ok for her to exclude men. As a woman I can’t fathom her reasoning; she appears to have opted for segregation over inclusion. And there you have the problem. The people doing the most damage to equality are those misandrist women who believe they are fighting for it so ardently but are completely missing the point.

I suppose I have been very lucky throughout my life that I have never felt anything less than equal to my peers.

As a child I was never made aware that my gender could determine my fate. I knew I was a girl but that had no bearing on how I dressed or my activities. Whilst I loved my frilly dresses; I adored the pink one with the scalloped hem and a sparkle in each scallop and the coral coloured bridesmaid dress; you were more likely to find me in my favourite pair of dungarees, the ones with the cowboys and Indians on each pocket; mainly because they were more comfortable and practical for playing out than the frilly dresses. Toys wise I did have a baby doll and pram but my toy box was also full of Dinky cars and Meccano. The pram was subsequently confiscated when my mother discovered it was being used as a cart to ride down the hill outside our house at a rate of knots. It was replaced by a pedal power go-kart, racing overalls and a helmet for my next birthday! And, to be fair, I enjoyed nothing better than helping my dad tinker with the car or try and beat him on the Scalextric track at the weekend. However, I also enjoyed dressing up, ballet classes and piano lessons.

I was one of a gang of kids who lived on the street and spent the days roaming our wider neighbourhood; on foot or bicycle; having fantastical adventures and getting into all manner of mischief. Neither we nor our parents gave a second thought about how diverse a bunch of kids we were; to us we were just friends. The first and only time I ever remember my gender coming into question was when I told the school careers master that I wanted to be a lawyer. After telling me I couldn’t study law as I’d not studied Latin he went on to state “you’re a girl, you’d be much more suited to nursing or teaching’. As it was, I did eventually end up doing really well in a nursing career but by that time my gender had nothing to do with the choice. 

Having grown up in a family of strong women; my great, great grandmother was a suffragette; it was odds on I was going to be wilful and rebellious. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed flirting with the wolf whistlers on my way to school, I knew it was just good natured banter with nothing meant by it and it made me feel good. As a woman I learned to use my flirting abilities to my advantage. The times I have got some poor wretch of a man to do my bidding are too numerous to mention. I will add that, in general, I either worked with or knew them well, but still they didn’t see through my ploy; I suppose you could say I was using their unconscious biases to get what I wanted. And the way I met my husband borders on sexual harassment with me as the perpetrator. Now, 46 years on, he is still the only man impervious to my flirting wiles. I attribute the success of our long marriage; predicted to last only six weeks; to being equal partners in the relationship. So much so that back in the early 90’s we were happy to swap our traditional roles when I became the main breadwinner. He became a stay at home dad well before it became fashionable. Whilst I worked he clothed and fed the girls, took them to ballet classes, made their costumes, cleaned the house and made sure there was a meal on the table for me when I got home. It was a family joke that I didn’t know what the kitchen was for! He would often be asked “so you’re unemployed then?” as though being the home-maker was not a valid occupation for a man.  A question which certainly wouldn’t have been asked of me if we’d kept our more traditional roles. So for us our gender wasn’t an issue and that is the way we brought up our girls.

Recently though, despite the fact that this kind of lifestyle choice is becoming more prevalent and acceptable, it seems to me that for some, feminism has taken on a more sinister man-bashing agenda, using gender bias as the bludgeon, with a lot of women jumping on the bandwagon because it is the trendy thing, rather than the right thing, to do. The social media is full of Militant Mummies; and it always seems to those with daughters; moaning about ‘sexist’ children’s clothes, toys and games sending the wrong messages. We must not dress our girls in pink frilly dresses, take them to ballet class, buy them dolls, or unicorns, or tea-sets, anything which might reinforce their perceived female weakness. These women are taking away the joy of bringing up children because they are using the term gender stereotype to indoctrinate girls, from the cradle, that to choose anything feminine or girly is to be abhorred because it will perpetuate their inferiority. I happen to agree about kid’s clothing by the way, but not the way you think and that’s a whole other blog. At school girls must be pushed into STEM subjects since that is the golden path to equality as well as, for some, a way to beat the boys at their own game. Well, that would have set me up for failure then; both career wise and equality wise!  Nor must we ever call them princess; non of my five daughters were since I can’t stand the term; or any other misconstrued gender defining epithets since that, apparently, sets them up for a lifetime of poor career choices and subservience to men. And, conversely, we should never tell our boys how big and strong they are or call them our knights in shining armour because they might grow up thinking they are the superior gender. Surely we should be teaching our children, from an early age, to understand that both women and men have their strengths and weaknesses and that only by working together with all people, regardless of gender, they are more likely to achieve their goals. We should stop force feeding them this politically correct gender stereotyping nonsense and hopefully prevent them from developing into even more tunnel visioned gender crusaders fighting for their skewed version of the cause; wanting all the trappings of acceptance; of who and what they are and the right to choose; but only on their terms. Whilst I do acknowledge that gender has played a role over the years in poor career choices, lack of progression and inequalities in pay and that abuse of women at the hands of men is an issue which seriously needs tackling, misandry has no place in the fight. Unfortunately these misandrists have got men well and truly in their crosshairs by fighting not for inclusivity but for exclusivity and superiority over men and turning it into an anti-male circus whose only goal is to emasculate men, trample them into the ground and remove them from the equation altogether. By doing this they are taking the focus away from the real issues. Will these same women cry “not fair” when their lives are devoid of men because those men are avoiding them for fear of any repercussions.

And whilst they are publicly haranguing us on social media about gender stereotyping our children, informed women and men are out there quietly working towards true equality by teaching our girls and boys good values; kindness; compassion; empathy; determination; ambition; and respect for others no matter who they are and what they think. Encouraging them to concentrate on what they can achieve rather than what they can’t, but basing any advice on their abilities, not their gender. Supporting them in their choices; whether it be a pretty dress and sparkly shoes, jeans and canvas pumps or, as my youngest preferred, a pretty dress and Doc Martens or our grandson, whose favourite 7^th birthday presents were his twin dolls and a pram; as long as it is their choice. Allowing them to follow their dream as I did with my five; truck driver, accountant and business owner, pole dancer and stay at home mums; so long as it makes them happy. There is a long way to go but hopefully, one day, gender will be irrelevant.