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I used to be in the EQUALITY mode – treat everyone alike. Be respectful towards everyone, be professional, etc. etc. Gender and age played no role in this view. I held both men and women to same standards. Meted them out with same treatment.
Of course, small details need appropriate discrimination. For instance, the elderly, the infirm, any one with special challenges are met with appropriate positive discrimination in their favor.
However, since my marriage recently, I’ve grown to respect women a lot more. I am now much more considerate towards them. Equality, in many aspects has slowly gone out the window, for most day-to-day scenarios. I now, to give some examples, don’t mind giving up my right of way in traffic to a woman driver; I am much more restrained in being critical & vocal of their driving errors; I always let them board/alight first – be it elevators, escalators, public transportation, etc.; Even in grocery stores, I allow them ahead of me; I reprimand anyone that tries to undermine women or pass ludicrous comments; I offer them help in any way I can – heavy luggage, pulling the bikes free, making space to park; I call and speak to my mother more often now than I did earlier; I speak to my sisters more often than in the past;
Earlier, I would just argue in favor of equality and would not have really done any of the above. What’s changed since my marriage?
I have now become very very sensitive about the rape cases I read/hear. Almost always tears stream down thinking of the abuse they’ve had to go through.
I look at some of the men folk around me and their attitude towards women worries me.
The pains and trouble I see women have to go through to plan any trips – near or far – to ensure their physical and emotional safety was not comprehensible to me earlier.
Most of the places, they feel more akin to a prey with innumerable predators around. It just should never be like that.
Now that my wife is pregnant too, I see the amount of pain and discomfort she has to endure: many sleepless nights, many tensions. I had no idea of all these issues until I had to live with someone going through the process.
In spite of all these – and many more challenges and issues – women manage to do awesome work. They are the key people holding many families together. They are the key people enabling many kids and husbands from going astray. Even in professional setting, they are generally far more reliable than many men. They budget their time so much more efficiently to finish up the work in time to get back to other responsibilities at home (here, I see many men wasting their official working hours in unnecessary gossip/chats and other frivolous activities so they can stay longer in the office to give an impression they are working hard! Many managers know this – they have themselves done this – but they victimize women.)
How can we not have more respect for them? How can we not have extra respect for them? Many women hardly even get the proper acknowledgement even at home.
I have decided to make the necessary changes in my corner of the world.