A long time ago I made a post about how I was not a feminist. Today, I feel the same way, but this feeling confuses me.
It's a fine line. Do I believe that women should be treated equally and given the exact same rights, wages, privileges, responsibilities, duties, and opportunities that men do? Honestly...no. But do I think that women should be treated with blatant INequality and disrespect? Absolutely not! So then, what is it that I actually believe?
My go to example is if a draft were reinstated. If we had true equality, then both men and women would be expected to draft at 18, not just men. Can you imagine being a parent and having to lose both your sons and your daughters to war? Family lines all over the country would cease to exist because there is no active preservation of that line.
If a man and a woman are doing exactly the same job, to the tee, with the exact amount and caliber of experience, then I think it is wrong if there is a wage gap. If the woman has more experience and a higher caliber, then I do not think she should be making the same or less than someone with less experience. I see it very objectively: take the gender off the resume and evaluate them based on their worth, not their sexual organs. However, there's a strong part of me that feels this is rarely the case. Even if the man and woman have the same caliber of education, I do not feel that their experience will be the same, and I do not think their perception towards clients or administrations will be the same. We have stereotypes for a reason, and while I know it's easy to defy them or be the exception, it's still an accurate assumption or else it wouldn't be the stereotype.
You have two companies trying to sign on a client. One is run by a guy, the other a girl.
Actually, let's start by looking how I addressed the scenario: Guy vs Girl. There's a social etiquette with gender terms, and for some reason, we are allowed to say girl for an adult, but not boy. By saying girl instead of lady or woman, aren't we already belittling females? If you say "girl" the first words a guy will think is young, silly, foolish, etc. Very similar to what girls think of the world "boy". But yet, I've called my mom a girl and there's never been an issue.
However, I digress...
The two companies cannot take the same approach with the client. The one run by a guy will take the client out to a round of golf and then a lunch, all expensively paid by his company, trying to show the luxuries available to the client by signing on. Of course, this is under the assumption that the client is a guy. If it is a girl, he'll probably still take her out to lunch, showing her the luxuries of the company but then taking the route that she would never have to lift a finger by signing on with them. The company run by a girl would be trying hard to impress a guy client by empirically stating facts proving her to be the best option. With a girl client she would probably take more of a relatable approach...
Of course I'm saying all this when I'm a teacher...which is a profession that has been ruled by women for the past century. Funnily enough this started out as a man's profession but when women started to feel the need to work for themselves they became teachers because their nurturing instincts would do well with the children in the classroom.
I need to make a better habit of not speaking of subject which I have no experience, just mild observations. I suppose my perception of the world is that men do more for society, so their added privileges and responsibilities don't strike me as odd or undeserving. However, if I personally am vying for something that is given to a man, I'm not going to pull the "it's because I'm a girl" card, I'm going to work to show that I'm the better candidate and do more to DESERVE it.
I am again saying this because I've been promoted over a guy before. Twice. We were both up for a supervisor promotion, and technically he had been promoted before me the first time (though I blame being out of the country half way through promotions, not lack of experience) I still beat him out for that promotion. Then when a manager position became open, there were only three of us with the experience to qualify the promotion, and it was me and another girl (ie NOT the guy) who got promoted. So I suppose all my personal experience says that my hard work will give me what I need and desire, regardless of my sex or the sex of those opposed to me. I might have a different stance if I were in a different position, but I'm not.
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