The differences between the two genders and how they are socialised. Is there really a problem? Should there be a difference?
To anyone who is of the male gender out there reading this, have you ever had a Barbie doll or a Bratz doll when they were younger? And out of the girls, were given cars or construction toys? Why not? What’s the difference between how a girl and a boy should be treated? Why are baby dolls ‘girly’? Why are construction toys for boys?
We live in a world where everything and everyone is affected by society’s norms and values. We live in a world where, we say we believe in ‘gender equality’. Key word being “believe”, we ‘believe’ that we are evolving as a society but, in reality, we give children toys that are seen as ‘boyish’ or ‘girly’ to the corresponding genders, but are they really? Did you guys ever realise that the ‘girly’ toys, such as the cooking sets and baby dolls that we used to and maybe even still do, love are just to socialise and prepare girls for their futures, looking after the children and cooking, of course this isn’t the case anymore, as women are now able to work without judgement or being called unladylike but there will always be people like this with these opinions, to them, there will always be a difference between the genders.
But what people fail to realise is the similarities between the genders. What are the real differences between the two genders? Apart from their physical structure, are there any real differences between the two genders? I know I can’t think of any, so why is it that women had to fight so hard to achieve ‘equality’, if you can even call it equality that is, which, in my opinion, hasn’t been achieved. Okay, I can work now and I can vote when I become of age. Yet, when I do start to work, my salaries will be an average of 9.4% lower than the salary of a man’s. Why is this? Is it that I will not, or do not work as hard as a man? Are men really as superior as they say they are? But, if I am correct, the average girl will achieve better than a male of her age in an exam. So, we can work hard if we want to. So what’s the difference?
And they say that we are striving towards the equality of the genders yet, the toys we are giving to the young say otherwise. Let’s look at the colours the two genders are surrounded by, pink and blue. When you think about it, your mind automatically thinks, pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Your mother, aunt, cousin, whoever it may be, had a boy? I think it’s time to buy her a blue helium balloon that says, “it’s a boy!” or if it’s a girl, we buy a pink balloon, a purple card, a pink gift. And it doesn’t change. The gifts are always the same. There’s the constant flow of dolls and teddy bears for the girls and the seemingly continuous number of cars and science sets for the boys.
But why does it have to be like this? Of course, you can buy a girl a train set or a science kit or cars, you can get a boy a doll but are they even seen to as liking these thing in the media or even in our everyday lives. As I said previously, everything and everyone has been affected by society’s norms and values, and going against these norms are seen as deviant in the eyes of society, in the eyes of the older generations, in the eyes of your peers and your family. And even though society is informally socialising us into however it expects us to be when we are older, we all accept it. It doesn’t matter how much you think that the things we do are socially constructed, you’ve accepted it, because, to all the boys, when you were younger, you wouldn’t have liked it if your parents gave you a Barbie doll, you would’ve thought it was girly and, girls, you wouldn’t have liked it if your parents gave you a construction set when the new crying and urinating Baby Annabel toy came out and all your cousins and friends had one.
We call ourselves a developing country, a developing society but can you really develop without letting the two genders out of their gender domains and allow them to flourish however they please into however they think the genders should differ. Why should they differ at all?
The Sydney Russell School.
-Saima Ali
