On women

Within the past century almost every aspect of human lives has been improved. More than half of the earth's populations are women. If they are such a major factor in the world, we often wonder why, at least by some, they are considered as second to men.

A friend of mine and I were arguing the other day whether the women of today enjoy a better life than women of, say, 100 years ago. I said that they are in fact far better off nowadays. My friend thought otherwise, that their status and condition are not in fact too far than 100 years ago. The perception of the society towards women is pretty much the same. They are weaker beings and lower than men in status. They are still expected to take care of the family even if they are working or even forced to stop after they have children. And the sad thing is that, most of the time, and both of us agreed on this, women themselves accept this view. To some extreme, some even enforced it (and yes, there are instances of this). This dear friend of mine questioned why in the last century, while everything else improved, this perception of woman has not changed much. And this is simply wrong; the world cannot grow properly if this point of view is still held on by its people.

I didn't really want to argue at that point of time (the coffee was hot, the place was not crowded, the evening was quite perfect) so I muttered some arguments and we moved on to argue about other things. But if I was to argue, perhaps this is what I would say.

Firstly, I agree. Women really had it bad for a long time. And of course, the main culprit is, who else, man. But again, we must admit, and glad, that they are better off now than a century ago. There have been improvements in many places and most of the modern world have seen that women are equal to men, and there's no denying of this since there are proofs of it (even as I say this, I am discriminating against women as if they are not equal to men from the very beginning. But we must realize that the fact is women have been treated unequal to men. So I'm saying that not out of disrespect but simply out of fact). But some women are still having it bad. Some are still looked down upon and discriminated against. Thousand and thousand of years of conditioning is hardly going to change just because of the last hundred years. It's kind of ironic actually because some experts have said that most societies are matriarchal at first. Why it has changed almost completely to patriarchal in the end is beyond my knowledge and I can't really judge whether it's for the better or not (although I seriously doubt it's for the better).

So let's see why this perception is still held by some people. I think the first reason is simply because it has been so for thousands of years. People tend to have this kind of inertia about a perception that has lasted for a long time. They refused to change their mind about certain things that has been around simply because it's been around. And what's been around for some time must have some truth in it, right? It's this kind of stupid stubbornness that made this kind of stupid view lasted in the first place. But like what I've said before, perhaps there are improvements in this area. Society has accepted that women are after all not second to men (they've never been in the first place). Job opportunities, civil rights, or simply their position in society is an improvement from their condition of the yesteryear. This mindset has changed, albeit bit by bit, but certainly changed. And women themselves perhaps have realized that they can do much more if they just rid of themselves this confining perception. Just ask the feminists.

Perhaps the second reason would be religion. Let's just take a look at Christianity and Islam as an example. They are arguably patriarchal religions. What make it worse are those people who insist on taking the literal meaning of the teaching. Come on, these teachings were written in ancient times and I can't believe that all of them can be applied literally in this age. I'm not saying to throw away everything because all those do-good-to-others stuff seems really sensible to me. But if we take everything literally then I can sell my daughters to slavery or obligated to kill everyone who works in Sabbath. And some of the things there are pretty much degrading to women. There might be reasons (and they might very well be good ones) to apply these rules at those points in time but now? Things have changed and you can't expect people to follow every rules conceived centuries ago today, right? To me, it doesn't make sense anymore that women in Afghanistan must be accompanied by male relatives every time they want to go out and be locked up in the house most of the time or denied education or simply to follow their husbands' every word. And don't get me started on the Christians too. They are not much better if not worse. Is there any improvement in this front? Well, there are more religiously moderate people nowadays. Those who has accepted the situation in today's world and do not try to apply everything literally. I guess people are more open minded religiously now than before, which is a good thing.

So there really are improvements. Yes, it's not that drastic or anything. There are still certain perceptions about women that society still holds onto. But I think the one good thing that today brings is choice. Women are given more choices (and yes, some are still not). And if some women choose to stop working and take care of her family, I think we cannot solely blame the society. Yes, I admit more opportunities should be given to women but it's a process. And I think it's going fairly well.

So how far have women gone from the women of a hundred years ago? I don't really know. I think they are going pretty well. Some might differ in opinion (like this friend of mine). But I think a hundred years is really not enough to overturn all those perceptions and mindset. Time is all we need and time will tell in the end.

Let me sidetrack a bit. I'm always a fan of chivalrous or gentlemanly behaviors. Opening doors, pulling up chairs, walking on the road side of the pavement, the whole deal(that might seem trivial to many). However, some feminists have said that such behaviors are degrading to women. It's as if women can't do it themselves they need men to do it for them. Chivalry is derived from some medieval thingy that involves soldiers and Christianity. The feminists questioned whether men do it out of tradition or out of sincerity. Now, that got me quite upset when I heard it for the first time. Does that mean that every time I open a door for a woman, I'm degrading them? I think it doesn't matter out of what I'm doing it because no one can judge my intention except me. And I don't think we should really take it too seriously. It's just courteous gestures (and some women do love it). I don't know about other men but I never meant any disrespect towards any woman that I opened doors and certainly not because I think they couldn't do it themselves (I opened doors for highly capable women, trust me). But I also realized that you can't force these things. If the woman you are with feel that it's degrading then don't do it. Once my friend mentioned above opened a door for me (the friend is a lady btw) but I insisted on her passing through first. She scolded me afterwards as if women can't open doors for men. When I thought about it, I realized that she might be right. If men can open doors for women, why not the other way around as well? So from then on, whoever gets to the door first get to open the door. So now I just have to get to the door first.

Cheers,
The opinionated me

This post was mostly conceived out of a conversation with Fie and out of watching too much West Wing. I'm in no way an expert on gender (or religous or cultural) issues and do not claim to be one. These are just opinions.