TRUE RESPECT FOR WOMEN IS NOT JUST BIOLOGICAL.

I remember my Year Eleven Economics Teacher talking about how we may not have the ability to have something we want and the ability to purchase something we don’t. He gave this example. “I’d really like a new car. A Mazda 929 would be nice, but I can’t afford one. But I can afford to go to the shops and buy a packet of cigarettes, but I don’t want to.”

I have read more tripe for the ridiculous individual that women are biologically defined to be carers and nurturers and that they should be respected in this role. To that I say, “A woman’s anatomy is designed with a womb and ovaries, to nurture new life, but that does NOT mean that a woman should have to want to have a baby.” There is a great deal of societal pressure for a woman to have children, and that can also see her having to juggle a career, a household and numerous other responsibilities and that can make her more tired.

Caring and nurturing can take more than one form. A school teacher, for example, should be a nurturer of the talent of the students they teach. A doctor cannot have a personal relationship with a patient, but they can have a good rapport with their patients, and that can be another form of nurturing.

But as I have said before, a woman shouldn’t stay home and look after kids because she HAS to; she should stay home and look after her kids because she WANTS to. Gone are, and gone should be the days where a woman undertook a menial role, such as typing and shorthand to be a secretary, that she was expected to do until she found a husband. I remember a nurse at the Day Infusion Centre saying that most nursing students seem to learn a lot about policies at university and not how to do some tasks. There again, nursing used to be considered a menial role of cleaning up vomit and other bodily secretions and being doctors’ handmaidens. Some women who became nurses nursed for a few years until they married a doctor, who would support them while they had a life of domestic drudgery.

A female school teacher or child care worker or even a female doctor who specialises in paediatrics might have a special rapport with children, but that doesn’t mean to say that she wants children of her own. I remember my mother asking a man who was a deputy principal and a father, which he found easier to look after, his kids or other people’s. His answer was, “Other people’s.” A reaction that is understandable because while a teacher is with kids around 40 weeks of the year and between 9am and 3pm with possible extra time to coach sporting teams, at the end of the day, you get to give the kids back, whereas as a parent, you don’t have that luxury.

And, another load of tripe that I read was that a man is not a real man until he can fulfil a mutually satisfying relationship with a woman and have a role in a functional family and be a male companion to a woman. There has been a saying in the Western world that, “A daughter is a daughter for life, A son is a son until he takes a wife.” Now, what is so wrong with the first statement here? Okay, a man who has a family who’d rather spend $1000 on something for his 4WD than put food on the table for his kids, is an immature man. But, not every man wants to get married, and what about gay men? A gay man doesn’t want to enter into a functional relationship with a woman; he wants another man. So, does that mean he’s not a real man? NO! My mechanic is married to a woman, but they don’t have any kids and they’re happy!

A man is a real man when he has a sense of priority, and a woman is a real woman when she does, too. For example, a woman who would rather have a manicure than buy food for her kids is irresponsible, just like a man who’d rather spend $1000 on a new bull bar for his 4WD than put food on the table!

So, rather than focusing purely upon biology, why not focus on psychology, and accept that women are equals and gender roles archaic?