Double Standards!

Glimmer Glamour! 2012 in review

Double Standards!

Season’s Greetings to you, my blogworms!

We come to the end of 2012 with all the usual highs and lows that happen along with a couple of things that happen to strike a chord within our mass consciousness, nationwide, worldwide.

Yes, as everyone is talking about the dreadfully awful crime that happened to one twenty-something Indian girl, I might as well put my two-pence in too.

India has, by all means, come a long way since its Independence from the British Raj back in 1947.

However, but, nevertheless, India still has immense expansive territory to cover before it can truly be worthy of being titled as a ‘developed nation’.

Real development isn’t just about finance and economy, nor is just about science and technology; it’s also about society and it’s inhabitants us, people, humans, Homo sapiens.

When we are all biologically, physiologically, scientifically, classified as one species, does gender really matter? The differences which Nature has endowed to us are purely for survival purposes, the rest is what we have made up to make our own lives difficult.

I frankly don’t see why different genders have to be socially valued differently; it’s just not the same as having financial classes, or performance rankings on a web page/classroom/company. These things can be measured with numbers, statistics and cogent matter, but societal values are essentially subjective and cannot be measured,so where do ranks come in? How do men come ‘first’ even though we say ‘ladies first’ but don’t actually mean it?!

Yes, women are probably not well-placed to lift heavy boxes, when she is pregnant, but otherwise, why shouldn’t she be?

Yes, women are more emotional than men, in that women express their emotions more than men, but then why should men be questioned if they are brave enough to shed some tears or emotion? Why should they be judged for showing emotion even?

Life on this planet can never be totally homogeneous and uniform, because there are differences abound, which make things exciting and worth celebrating about. But all we’re asking for is some balanced perspective here.

Why should it be risky for women to venture out of their homes? Is what the world is asking at the moment?

My question to you is, why the double standards? Especially the ones women set on women themselves?!

Why should a women still be assumed to take care of things in the kitchen even though she has had a particularly tiring day at work? Is it just men who get tired after work? Don’t women too? Can’t women too, even? Is it really sinful if a husband makes/serves dinner once in a while?

Don’t get me wrong, this issue isn’t just in India and the South-East, it’s everywhere! Believe me, I’ve asked around.

The flaws are ingrained in the prejudicial thinking which our ancestors have laid down for us and it is up to us to not only identify these flaws, but to rectify them.

While our elders ‘and betters’ are set in their ways and have little room to change, I can only appeal to my contemporary generation and the ones following us, if there is one thing you can learn out of all the books/websites you encounter, it’s this: there is no such thing as a ‘good’ gender or a ‘bad’ gender we’re all good and bad a complex mishmash of good and bad values, traits, attitudes, which make us imperfect souls.

Men aren’t above women as women aren’t above men either we have been designed to perform different functions but that doesn’t mean we supersede each other we cannot because we are simply not perfect.

So, the next time you think of dismissing a women or a man on the basis of their gender, dismiss the thought and you’ll be better off for it.

Hey, we’ve gotta start from somewhere!