#7 Can we stop the celebration?
How many reminders are needed? Without half the population, the other would not exist. Why is it so difficult to understand?
————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Last Friday, the 8th of March, was International Women's Day. A friend of mine asked me to have dinner with her to celebrate it. I accepted, not because I considered it a date to commemorate but an excellent excuse to skip cooking at home. I like to grab opportunities when I see them appear by my side, but even if I like to dine out, the more I thought about the appointment the days before, the less I liked it. I understand the idea of such a day to encourage people to speak up, celebrate overcoming challenges, and educate the general population about the struggles of half the population. Still, I find it insulting to need it. Why do we need to schedule a day a year to recognize that we are not doing right to half of the world's population?
The day before the dinner, my kids argued at home about men and women, rights, and differences. My daughter is fifteen and has a very short fuse for arguments. My son is thirteen and the calmest person on the planet's surface. Apparently, the discussion started with a simple question: are there more men or women around the globe? Although their phones seem as essential to them as any of their natural appendixes, they did not look for information online. They arrived somehow to the conclusion that there should be more women since men's jobs are more dangerous... and after a few minutes of such a conclusion, I had to stop their yelling at each other. The girl was exhausted, listing why men were guilty of wars and injustice throughout time. At the same time, the boy could not understand why women did not do whatever men did "based on the expected equality." Both had their points, and once I made them stop the shouting contest, none of them felt like speaking with me about such a topic, so I left them alone until my son came to me later in the evening.
"Mum, are there more men or women on the planet?" He asked me.
I thought he would have had time to search for it himself, but it seems that parents' phones are better at finding important information, so I opened my browser and tried to find the magical numbers. To his disappointment and my initial idea, the globe has a nearly fifty-fifty distribution. Still, I was curious about the previous discussion with his sister, so I asked why this was so important to him.
At first, he was unsure how to present his ideas, but after his father indicated that men's life expectancy is lower than women's, my dear boy was resented and full of courage to speak up. "It is not fair for men,” he said, "to work more and live less.” As a mother, a woman, and a responsible citizen of this planet, I felt compelled to give my son some extra details and facts before he decided to kill the feminist movement.
It is important to say now that a) we live in a "1st world country", b) we've been lucky so far, and my kids cannot miss any essential need and too many non-essential, c) They've never been exposed to the cruel and unjust world outside our front door. So, yes, my kids are sometimes clueless about what happens with other people, and I can blame myself for that. As parents, it can sometimes be challenging to draw a line between protection and avoidance. I know we've avoided many discussions of tricky topics in the past. Still, even protective parents need to correct their mistakes at a certain point.
We spoke about girls around the world who cannot study. We discussed the power of choice: to study, to marry (or not), to have children (or not), to have a career, to drive cars, and to say what they think without fear of being punished. My son did not understand how someone could not choose their own life's path. Bless him and his ignorance. This was the easy part: pointing out things so bad that no one would dare defend them (unless you live in one of those countries, enjoying, applying, or fearing those rules). The worst was trying to explain to him what it means to be a woman in a place where there is "equality" among genders, knowing that such equality dances in a very fine line. In the first world, girls can study whatever they want, which is true. It is equally valid that since girls are born, many are dressed in cute pink dresses, taught to be polite and delicate, offered baby dolls to take care of them, and praised every time they clean up around the house, following their mothers. Girls are encouraged to go to university to take on challenging jobs -- many of them male-dominated-- because a girl, a woman, can do whatever she wants. Then, it arrives the point of personal decisions: to have a family or not, to have children or not, to keep on working, to stay at home, to do a part-time job. And the decision is impossible. I mean, it is impossible to choose ideally. It seems women's lives have been designed to fail, even when we succeed because no matter what we do, we'll always miss something... or be criticized for it. And those critics plant doubt, and doubts provoke fear and fear... fear triggers discussions with our thirteen-year-old boys about things they cannot understand.
My son looked at me as I looked at America Ferrera's monologue in the Barbie movie, speechless. I looked at him proud. I hope his difficulty in understanding the injustices I spoke about is a sign that he will not do that to others: set terrible expectations, overjudge those different from him, and overrule bad behaviors.
Now, I need to speak with my 15-year-old girl, who is full of ideas and criticism. Fighting for our beliefs is admirable, but we should not set fire to the world by doing it... just saying... because I can.
