Everyday Canvas

On Gender Equality

Prompt: Do you think we are currently living in a good time for women in history? Will we look back at this time period in the future and say that there was equality?

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I think the time we are in is the best time in history for women in USA. I can’t say the same for every place in the world, while ISIS, Taliban, and other rotten groups are creating hell on earth for women. Little do they know that acts against women and children are assaults against any potential positive future for the world, for women are not and should never be treated as subplots in the entire human story.

As far as humanity goes, while I hold USA and the western world above all others, I doubt if women are getting and achieving what they deserve, still. At least, forced marriages and other nasty stuff are rare if not extinct. In regard to equal pay and reaching the professional ceiling concept, that is still iffy. As Sheryl Sandberg said in Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, “We must raise both the ceiling and the floor.”

Then, if I were to live fifty years more and look back to today, who knows, we could be further ahead or may have taken a step or two back, since future is tough to predict. As is, we in the western world are better off than in the past but not as advanced as we should be, only because I don’t think any civilization on earth is an advanced one…yet. If it were, everyone’s basic needs would be met, while our lives would be without wars and with understanding and acceptance among all groups.

As to gender equality, I wonder if it is or will be at all possible. Science finds, everyday, small differences between genders. Although those differences shouldn’t hold us back, perfect equality may not be possible unless we default both genders on things they come short of, like in handicapped bowling, and if we were to imagine ourselves in bowling leagues, right now, even in the winningest nations, women’s wins depend on spares but not on strikes.