Gender inequality...et alors?

Many seem unconvinced by the pink-vs-blue debate, i.e. the idea that the stereotypical categories boys and girls are placed in at birth have any effect on gender equality. Whereas admittedly the debate is easily and often taken to the extreme, claiming that “ironing makes me happy, and my husband is a lot better at changing tyres than I am” isn't at all satisfactory in silencing it. Women who wrinkle their nose at the word 'feminist' and fail to see the underlying reasoning of the inequality debate are clearly missing the point. There is nothing wrong with girls wanting to wear pink; it is just unreasonable to assume that this will doesn't arise from forms of social stereotyping. The social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities lies at the very core of the inequality problem.

Psychologists claim that stereotyping is inevitable; they have existed since the dawn of time, and are unconsciously created by the human mind. However, this realisation does not mean there is no hope of ridding ourselves of clichés of what constitute men and women. Rather, it presents us with a different angle on the issue of gender stereotypes. Whereas we cannot – and perhaps need not – extinguish them, we can render them unimportant by not allowing them to be value-laden, and by not reinforcing them. Stereotypical beliefs that men and women tend to have certain characteristics according to their gender surely serve to create men and women with precisely these characteristics.  The danger of culturally constructed ideas of what men and women are is this; they have the tendency of producing self-fulfilling prophecies, and creating gender roles that women and men both find themselves confined to. The mere recognition that our gender roles are largely stereotypical is a constructive psychological step towards realising their arbitrariness.

While it would never cross my mind that my male colleagues, brother or boyfriend belong to a superior part of society, that is undoubtedly still the way our society at present is organized. Saying that it is not about superiority, but that men and women are different, and good at different things, is irrelevant, and doesn't correspond with the consequences gender disparities have in reality: the framework of our society is built up on basic assumptions that persistently value characteristics traditionally associated with men higher than those associated with women, and reward men over women. Thus, to claim that men and women are just different, without admitting the value inherently attributed to it, is nonsense. Desirable characteristics don't innately belong to men or women; they are socially constructed, and while real, essentially arbitrary.

This realisation brings light to the question of of self-perception, or even self-deception, if you may; just because young women of our generation do not feel they are inferior to the male sex or ever come across gender discrimination in their daily lives does not mean that gender inequality isn't still largely prominent and problematic. This non-negotiable mindset is of course crucial for the development of gender equality in our society, but not sufficient. It is easier to gaze far abroad and express horror over the treatment of women in certain foreign cultures, but a lot more difficult to realise that a battle that has been fought for a very long time by our very own ancestors is not even close to being over. Assuredly, the debate is not new, and attempts to force society into a different direction exist on a wide scale. In Norway for example, the gender representation laws introduced to private sector boardrooms in 2006 have been very successful; in demanding 40% women on governing boards, the traditional 'male bastion' that has long been the case in the private sector is being eradicated.  Norwegian attempts to boost women's labour market participation and thereby their economic independence rest on the ethos that “it is important to make use of all the human resources in our country, not just half of them.”

Likewise, the French have been proactive in attempting to tackle gender inequality through the imposition of quotas, and, more recently, by assuring the quantitatively equal access to elective positions, a concept known as parité. Women and men are politically equal according to the republic trilogy, but the yet problematic notion of parité is going to take time; big parties pitifully choose to accept financial penalties rather than present more female candidates on their electoral lists. Whereas it is inevitably essential to ensure women equal access to the political scene, what has to be acknowledged is that to some extent only the passage of time will be able to insert into the public mind, of men and of women, the blatant truth that women and men are equally capable of being politicians. Persisting inequalities in politics has to do with the fact that it still hasn't been particularly long since women were actually welcomed as equal actors into political life. Claiming that men are generally more active in politics than women isn't tantamount to implying that this has anything to do with male and female characteristics; it is the same thing as saying that women are more present than men in nursery schools, pointing only to the fact that tradition dies slowly.

Despite gender equality being considered a human right, it is one that is consistently breached and too often in the public eye brushed of as being the political aspirations of angry women who do not shave. The words 'empowerment of women' leaves a bad taste in many mouths. A misogynistic attitude is not the appropriate response to the gender equality debate, but rather a misunderstanding of it. Feminism doesn't seek to do away with men, but to undermine patriarchy. The debate must however remain situational, and apply equally in domains where men are underrepresented due to the domination of women; men being granted equal rights to parental leave is a good example of the duality of the debate, and highlights that it is in fact about equality. 

Some find the philosophical grounding on why we insist on the for the uncompromising equality  between men and women difficult to stomach, because inequality unfortunately exists between so many other groups. However, I find it difficult to avoid the reality that women are not a social category; we constitute 50% of society. This division is as fundamental as it gets. Whereas we unquestionably must remove all discrimination based on arbitrary grounds, if we cannot first assure the equal rights and opportunities for men and women, I doubt that we in the long run will be successful in assuring any kind non-discriminatory society.