I love reading inspirational posts about women and celebrating women. I guess it feels particularly pertinent this year with the heightened awareness of the treatment of women and a sense of unity across the board. I have a few niggles with it all though and fear we are heading for a situation where it goes too far. I love a joke to an appropriate level with males and females and would hate to lose it completely for fear of offence or harassment. I worry that by stripping it back to its core, we lessen the consequence for the really evil people of the world and somehow take away from the poor women (and men) who have really suffered at work, or home to the hands of a sexual predator. No one should ever have to suffer that but I feel scared for the world and the level of “P C” we might have to achieve to eradicate the suffering.
My other issue with women, equality and creating a better world, is that it’s quite often women themselves that create the problem. I think it is more rare for a group of lads to pick each other apart based on appearance. Women seem preprogrammed somehow, perhaps thanks to the media and showbiz, to be on the defence and looking for fault in other women. The headlines of all trashy magazines tend to be how “shock horror, Jane Doe has put on weight during pregnancy.” “Guess how much Kim Kardashian weighs?” Its rare for an article to focus on achievements beyond their face or body. Some do, don’t get me wrong but for the most part it’s a negative angle or congratulating a celebrity on their extremely rapid weight loss. They have gone from a heffalump of a size 12 to a size 8 in a mere 7 days. Why do they do it? Because women in their thousands will buy it. Stick Kim Kardasian on the front with a headline about how she’s built a business empire that rivals pretty much anything in what, a decade and it isn’t as interesting to as many people. It should and could be but we are somehow geared up to this stereotype of women that we are fuelling ourselves. A quick scan of male magazines on the shelf and the negative aspect and headlines is practically zero.
So my wish for the future of equality is for women to acknowledge they are a large part of the problem and actively work towards change. We are equal, better and worse in lots of different ways to males and fellow females. To be taken seriously, let’s take ourselves seriously and start with a positive attitude towards ourselves.
The Lincolnshire Mummy 