Gender Roles

One of the biggest arguments, and most widely talked about topics in today’s society is the difference between men and women. In debates on this topic, you might hear people discussing: which is the superior sex, equal rights between the two, gender roles, and many more different topics. The simple fact is that men and women are different. I mean, look at us, even if you don’t believe we are different on the inside, there is no denying the fact that we are different on the outside. Not to say that one sex is better than the other, but we both have areas in which we naturally excel. Today I wish to discuss gender roles, and how we need to work together on this topic and stop fighting to tear each other down.

Out of all the topics I mentioned above, I think the most widely talked about subject is easily gender equality. It is no secret that up until the last century or so it was a very man dominated world. All the political leaders were men, men were the only ones who were allowed to vote, and woman were not given leadership roles in the military. If you look in today’s world, those examples are no longer the case, and it took a lot of work for women to earn those rights. Since these changes, there are countless women that have helped, and made the world a better place than if we had kept the status quo. Yes, we have made great steps towards gender equality, but there are still those out there that believe we are still robbing women of countless rights that men are allowed to have.

Now I agree that everyone should be given an equal chance in this life to reach their goals and accomplish what they want to with their lives. At the same time, I don’t think we should change or lower the standards in certain areas to make them more women friendly. We talked about an example of this exact subject in my class that I found fascinating. In order to become a firefighter, there are physical tests and requirements that must be met in order to get the job. When they were running the tests, the men were excelling a lot more then the women were in the physical tests. They were able to carry the test dummies with greater ease and rescue the dummies in a quicker time than the women were able to. After this happened, there were people that thought the test wasn’t fair to women, as it obviously leaned more towards the men’s strengths. They thought the tests should be changed in order to make it more accommodating for the women. (This was the part that I thought was interesting.) In addition to the women that thought the test should be changed, they talked to a lot of women that thought it was a stupid idea! They said that if their house was burning down, they wanted the most qualified person there saving their kids lives, regardless of if it was a man or a woman. I very much agree with the later group. I think we should give a woman every possible chance that we should give a man, but I do not believe that we should alter testing, or standards to favor either sex, (including if the roles were reversed.) If a woman is more qualified to teach my kids, or perform any other task, let her do it! I’m not going to complain saying that they were given an unfair advantage over a man.

In today’s society gender is easily one of the most discussed topics, and sadly for the wrong reasons. We should be celebrating the differences between our genders, and looking for ways that we can work together, not against each other. I absolutely love a quote that my professor shared in class, “Men and women are to complete each other, not compete with each other.” We need to all be looking for ways that we can work together to make this a better world, not be looking for ways to tear each other down. Yes, we still have a ways to go as far as gender equality, but the only way we can do this is together.