“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader
WE'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY! NOT REALLY!
(Written 24 February 1999. Published in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted 19 June 2009.)
One of my favorite things to do
on-line is to converse with fellow Arkansans.
It gives me the opportunity to get feedback about various political and
social issues that I would not normally get the opportunity to get. Some of these conversations have been rather
illuminating, and yes, even a bit disturbing.
In one particular conversation, I
was asked if I would allow Mrs. Schrader to go someplace by herself sans kidlets. I responded
that since I go on trips by myself, it was only fair that Mrs. Schrader should
go places by herself, and she had. After
all, I pointed out, the little ones are mine also and I have to share the
responsibility.
Apparently, however, men allowing their wives to have a little freedom is the
exception, not the norm. Sure, there are
many good men out there who treat their spouses as equals; however, there are
many more who hang on to the old macho malarkey that men are somehow better,
that women are inherently weaker and inferior and must be "protected"
from the evil world. This is especially
true in the smaller towns.
Yes, I know it is hard to admit
that less than one year from the millennium, women are still treated as
inferiors. I don't know, but I suspect,
that this is harder for women than men to accept, because it means that the
efforts of women over the past two centuries to gain equality have, for all
practical purposes, been for naught. We
really haven't come all that far.
Sure, women have the right to
vote, but men still control the power structure. There have been no women Presidents or
Vice-Presidents, and only a handful of women Senators and Representatives, and
some of those got the job because their husbands died in office (the most
recent case being Mary Bono). In
supposedly backwards countries, where women are supposedly second-class,
countries like
Look around you. Pay close attention to the roles women fill
in your world. You will be repulsed at
what you find. I know I was. If you are a woman, your options are
limited. You can be a nurse; you can be
clerical help; you can be a school teacher; you can be a housewife. Pretty much, that is it. Women aren't supposed to be architects,
engineers, scientists, doctors, dentists, politicians. Women are supposed to serve others; men are
supposed to lead. That is the way it is
supposed to be, or so the argument goes.
This is not to denigrate
schoolteachers, secretaries, nurses, and housewives. Their roles are just as important as the more
"glamorous" male-dominated roles.
However, the problem is that there are a lot of women who go into these
positions who are just settling. They
are not teaching, etc. because they want to, but because it is expected,
because it is the best they can get.
I know of one young woman who is
going into teaching who is quite socially and academically challenged. She will not make a good teacher,
period. Yet, she and others like her will
continue to pollute a once proud profession because it is what is expected of
her and not what she is good at. The
result of all of this is that we have quite a few unqualified or unhappy people
doing things they don't want to do ruining the credibility of entire professions
because it is what is expected of their gender.
Because of this gender role
hogwash, we are systematically telling one-half of the American population that
they cannot achieve their dreams, that they are somehow different and
second-class. What is frightening about
all of this gender role thing is that we are about to enter a new millennium
where we, quite frankly, don't know what we will find, and we are preventing
some of the best people from leading us into this great unknown. I don't know about you, but I want the best
people for the job, both male and female.
Don't you?
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